Healing Through Travel: Becoming Myself Again on the Road

I Like Who I am When I Travel

During the first year of my separation, I developed what I like to call a very practical coping strategy: whenever I felt too sad, I booked a flight. This was the beginning of healing through travel.

The house felt quiet. Predictable. Still in a way that made my thoughts louder than they needed to be. Airports, on the other hand, hummed with possibility. Gate announcements. Rolling suitcases. The low murmur of strangers heading somewhere.

Home held history.
Airports held momentum.

If I’m being honest, sometimes I scheduled trips because I needed the escape. A change of scenery felt easier than sitting in an empty living room. Movement gave my mind somewhere else to land.

And somewhere between boarding groups and hotel check-ins, I noticed something.

I really liked who I was when I traveled.

Me at 30,000 Feet

At 30,000 feet, my problems felt contained.

Technically, they were still waiting for me at home, of course. Bills still needed paying. Paperwork still needed signing. Conversations still needed to be had. But in the air, suspended somewhere between departure and arrival, none of it could reach me.

Travel-Me is calm.

I glide through TSA pre-check. I check my boarding pass twice. I’m strategic about my carry-on. If there’s lounge access involved, I’m there early. Not in a flashy way, just in a “I’ve earned this peace” way.

There is something about airport lounges that feels quietly indulgent. A comfortable chair. A glass of wine before takeoff. Charging ports and anonymity. No one is asking questions about your life. No one is aware of your personal upheaval.

Waking up in a city that doesn’t know my history felt like freedom.

In those spaces, I was curious. Observant. Open to conversation. Still aware of my surroundings, still grounded, but lighter. The version of me on the road smiled more easily. She struck up conversations at hotel bars and lingered over meals. She allowed herself small upgrades without guilt.

Occasionally, she even upgraded to first class.

There’s something about sitting in a wider seat with extra legroom that feels symbolic. Not because of the luxury itself, but because it signals agency. I chose this. I booked this. I’m going somewhere.

When I told my therapist that I liked who I was when I traveled, she didn’t seem surprised.

“Maybe that version of you isn’t new,” she suggested. “Maybe she’s not in survival mode.”

That thought stayed with me.

A Creature of Habit, Even in New Cities

Here’s the irony: for someone who loves exploration, I’m also a creature of habit.

New York City became a regular stop that first year. And every time I went, I found myself returning to the same restaurants, the same bars, the same familiar corners. Sometimes, there’s comfort in knowing exactly what you’ll order before you sit down. Comfort in recognizing the lighting, the music, the rhythm of a place.

Exploration doesn’t always mean novelty. Sometimes it means revisiting what makes you feel like yourself.

And on one of those trips, I chose something new. I bought a single ticket to see Hell’s Kitchen—the Broadway show inspired by Alicia Keys’ life.

The Night That Stayed with Me

I’ve been to many performances before — shows with my grandmother, nights at the Kennedy Center — but this felt different. This one, I attended alone.

And it wrecked me in the best way.

In the theatre, I laughed. I cried. I sat in deep thought long after the curtain call. So many scenes pulled at memories I thought I had tucked away neatly. Hurt. Anger. Sadness. The kind of grief that lingers beneath the surface even when you’re functioning well.

One line in particular hasn’t left me:

“Your rage is real. Your rage is earned. But you can’t let it win.”

When I heard it, I felt seen.

Because rage had visited me. Quietly. Privately. In imagined conversations that never happened and rehearsed speeches delivered only in my mind. In late-night thoughts that tried to rewrite outcomes.

It also came in my alone time, which was abundant that year, my thoughts wandered. I replayed scenarios. Imagined reconciliations. Drafted dialogues that felt so vivid they almost seemed real.

But sitting in that theater, I felt the Holy Spirit whisper something deeper: rage may be justified, but it cannot be your master.

I remember thinking, God, I won’t let it consume me.

That night wasn’t just entertainment. It was correction. Comfort. And conviction wrapped in melody.

And it planted the seed for another realization: music heals in ways conversation sometimes cannot.

(That story deserves its own space.)

The Come Down

The flight home the next day felt heavier.

There is a particular kind of stillness that waits for you after a trip. The suitcase by the door. The silence when you unlock it. The air that hasn’t moved.

Back home, a part of me hated it there.

The walls held memories. Reminders of what I didn’t have anymore. The absence felt loud. Sleep was hard. My mind raced. Some nights I couldn’t catch my breath. I had to relearn how to breathe.

I looked around and my home looked how I felt: disheveled, unkept, and neglected.

That is the honest truth.

But another truth sat alongside it. What I did have mattered more. I had God. I had my life. My health. My calling. Work that still required me to show up. Breath in my lungs.

In moments when loneliness tried to distort my perspective, I reminded myself: I have a Husband in heaven who sustains me.

He maintains me.

His love is sufficient. His love overflows.

The peace I felt at 30,000 feet wasn’t just altitude. It was proximity to the One who was holding me the entire time.

I was still standing because of His everlasting love.

Travel didn’t replace faith. It revealed how much I needed it.

Movement as Medicine

Grief thrives in stillness.

During that season, movement became one of the ways I stayed afloat. I was still learning how to trust God through everything that had burned down, something I reflect on more deeply in Faith in the Fire.

When I stayed home too long, my thoughts spiraled into imagined conversations and alternative endings. But movement interrupted that cycle. A boarding announcement demands your attention. A new city requires navigation. A dinner reservation expects your arrival.

Travel gave my mind something constructive to hold. But more than distraction, it offered perspective. This, I’ve learned is what healing through travel can look like.

In new cities, I saw people building businesses from scratch. Communities investing in themselves. Artists creating beauty from their stories. That kind of resilience is contagious.

Watching others rebuild reminded me that rebuilding is possible. Healing, like development, takes intention. It requires maintenance. It demands participation.

God wasn’t just rescuing me from the fire. He was rebuilding me through it.

Luxury as Self-Respect

Somewhere along the way, I stopped apologizing for enjoying the small luxuries.

Lounge access. A nicer hotel. A window seat. Dessert after dinner. None of it was extravagant in the grand scheme of things. But in a season where life felt unstable, those choices felt grounding.

Choosing comfort intentionally became an act of self-respect, not escape.

I wasn’t spending recklessly or avoiding responsibility. I was allowing myself to experience ease without guilt.

That mattered.

Because when your personal life feels unpredictable, creating pockets of controlled peace can stabilize you.

Travel offered that.

The Shift

By the end of that first year, something had changed.

Not in the fairytale way where the sadness disappeared and the house felt light again. It didn’t.

If anything, the contrast became sharper.

The more I traveled, the more I noticed how heavy home still felt. The more peace I experienced in motion, the more I recognized the tension in stillness. Returning from trips didn’t feel like “coming back”, it felt like shrinking.

That realization was uncomfortable.

Because it meant the solution wasn’t another weekend away. It wasn’t a better suitcase. Not even a stronger coping strategy.

What unsettled me was the possibility that my environment no longer matched who I was becoming.

Travel didn’t cure my restlessness. It clarified it.

Eventually, I made a decision that felt both terrifying and necessary: I would leave the house. The following year, I did.

What started as temporary pet sitting became something else entirely. A season of borrowed spaces and borrowed routines. A season where I quite literally didn’t have a permanent address.

There’s irony in that. After spending a year escaping through travel, I ended up living in transition.

And now, I find myself asking a bigger question: “What if the change I need isn’t just a new house, but a new city?”

Fifteen years (and counting) is a long time to call somewhere home. Long enough to build history and confuse familiarity with destiny. Long enough to attach identity to geography.

But sometimes growth requires more than perspective. Sometimes it requires relocation.

Becoming Her at Home

The biggest revelation wasn’t that travel healed me.

It was that the version of me who thrives while traveling isn’t exclusive to airports and hotel rooms.

She’s observant.
Confident.
Curious.
She treats herself well.
She moves with intention.

That woman exists at home, too.

What travel clarified, I eventually had to practice at home. I write more about that process in Reclaiming My Joy, where presence and intention found their way into my everyday life.

Healing, I’ve learned, is not about becoming someone new. It’s about shedding what weighs you down so your truest self can move freely.

If you find that you like who you are when you’re on vacation, pay attention to that. That version of you may not be artificial. She may simply be unburdened.

And maybe the real work isn’t booking constant flights.

Maybe it’s learning how to carry that freedom back home.

Are You Healing Through Travel?

If you find yourself feeling more like yourself when you’re away from home, don’t rush to label that as avoidance. Pay attention instead.

Ask what feels lighter. What feels freer. What part of you finally has space to breathe when expectations loosen and pressure lifts.

Healing through travel taught me that freedom isn’t tied to a destination, it reveals what has been buried under survival. The real work begins when you ask how to carry that version of yourself back into everyday life.

If this reflection resonates with you, I’d love for you to stay connected. You can subscribe to Grace Notes, my newsletter, where I share quiet reflections on faith, healing, and becoming.

And if travel has played a role in your healing, you’re welcome to share your story in the comments. Your experience might be the mirror someone else needs.