Post-travel

Post-travel mindfulness

You’ve returned home, your bags are unpacked, your laundry is done, and your head is spinning with wonderful memories of your travels. Here are some tips to help you process and share your experiences.

Embrace global citizenship

In her book Beyond Guilt Trips: Mindful Travel in an Unequal World, Anu Taranath, PhD, shares how travelers leave their comfort zones to fully engage in a multicultural world while traveling yet return home and do not incorporate what they learned abroad into their daily lives. Therefore, it is important to take time to mentally unpack and process all that you encountered and absorbed during your travels. Through reflection and sharing we allow ourselves to:

  1. Rethink who we interact with at home,
  2. Integrate new knowledge and skills, and
  3. Follow through on the concept of global citizenship, viewing every person as a citizen of the world, not simply their local context[1, 2].

Tips for embracing global citizenship

Take time to reflect

Review notes, recordings (video and audio), and photos, and examine and contextualize your experiences using the tools and resources you explored in pre-trip preparations[3].

Maintain relationships

Continue conversations and communication with your fellow travelers and contacts made during your travels as this may aid in your reflections.

Share your experiences

Upon your return, share stories, pictures, videos, and experiences via social interactions and/or social media. By sharing new knowledge and experiences you provide greater access to and understanding of places and cultures many may never visit. This potentially helps others become mindful global citizens, like you, in their own communities[4].

Commit to lessons learned

Now that you have arrived home with new knowledge and understanding of other cultures, consider ways to use your learnings to support more safe and inclusive interactions and environments at home and in future travel.

Conclusion

Travel can be transformative, exposing us to enriching, inspirational, wonderous, and educational experiences. It can help provide perspective on our daily lives as well as how we see and interact with others. Hopefully, this guidance will help you, a mindful global citizen, to get the most out of your upcoming IU Travels tour.

Thank you for trusting IU Travels and our travel partners with your travel needs. As always, we are here to help you. Simply call (812) 855-6843 or learn more about IU Travels opportunities online, where you can browse tours available now.

Continue your mindful journey

Footnotes

  1. Taranath, A, (2019). Beyond Guilt Trips: Mindful Travel in an Unequal World. Between the Lines.[↵]
  2. United Nations Global Code of Ethics for Tourism (2024)[↵]
  3. Taranath (n 1).[↵]
  4. Taranath (n 1).[↵]