BootsnAll Travel Community

I depart June 12th on my RTW, and as the time gets nearer my anticipation is steadily growing, and I have this feeling at some point (probably the minute I look out over the most amazing beach I've ever seen as the sun shines...) that I'm going to cry at the realisation of everything: what I'm doing, how hard I worked to make it happen, extreme happiness at that moment, etc. It's almost as if I know that moment will take place at some point in my trip, regardless of where/how, so much so I kinda get choked up just thinking about it!

I guess I'm asking: has it happened to you? have you experienced this moment? If so, where, when and why was it?

J.

Okay, i realise my post may have led people to think I'm a complete bumhead - but what I'm getting at is 'Is there a point in your trip that made you overwhelmingly emotional?'

J.

Yes, of course!
Then again, I can cry at Sprint ads. But really, when I spent Valentines day on the beach in Belize, I looked over the Carribbean with my pina colada in hand as the sun set and thought "holy jesus I'm lucky"...and that was with e.coli
Emotions help you remember a moment. Bumhead or not.

You're not a bumhead. And yes, I did cry. I felt such a visceral connection with Co. Clare, Ireland. I cried walking down the lane from the music center which led out to the main road my second day there. I cried when we drove, the trad music playing in the mini-bus taxi, to a pub Ennistymon in the evening. Looking out at the soft green hills, passing houses with lights glowing inside, seeming so familiar, yet brand new at the same time.

I think I get what you’re asking about....

I'm a small town girl who was very shy growing up, so when I decide to backpack around Europe on my own it was big for me. But I'd made it though 4 years of college I wanted to challenge myself. I had been backpacking around for two weeks when I wound up in Rome on a pub-crawl. And out of nowhere it hit me... I was in Rome, drinking strange Dutch beer with a bunch of complete strangers that felt like my best friends and watching the sun go down over the Coliseum. For that insist I was completely in that moment and it felt amazing. That moment is still the moment I remember most from that trip...

Well, I am mostly a hard ass and don't cry very often....except it seems like when I travel, all that changes.

Mostly I can't get the thought out of my mind that I am a lucky, lucky girl. The crying moments have come at the typical "sunset" moments in the caribbean as well as some unexpected times.

One of those unexpected times was wreck diving in Lake Superior. Yeah, I thought it was going to be cool, but I didn't expect the level of emotion it brought up. It think it was the fact that they had several books on board that told the stories and the history of the wrecks. It really help put you in the history and try to imagine the people involved. I just remember going down the decent line and going over the side and seeing the words "Emperor" on the side of the ship and feeling these intenes feelings.....maybe I was narced....but a very intense moment. The other thing I realized is how few people get to see this....seemed to add to the moment. Maybe nobody else cares to see this ..... but it was intense for me!!

Seeing as the floodgates are opening:

I had a bit of cry in Budapest on a bridge across the danube, at night.

It was very beautiful.

Although twas partly because I just found out a girl I liked didn't like me.

Awwww James I had a big fat cry for a night and most of the next day for the same reason (though it was a *boy* not a girl for me. Though, in retrospect I suspect the whole thing was just a misunderstanding....*sigh*....

only the good cries...

Mt. Kilimanjaro, leaving Stella Point (~19,000 ft) and making the last push to Uhuru Peak (the summit), passing vistas of the sun rising over the remaining glaciers on the way, I teared up. I could have busted out bawling, but the sheer cold and fatigue kept me from doing that as I felt like it was all a dream.

1st week in Ecuador, I teared up on the bus from Latacunga to Chugchilan because of the amazing scenary and the amazing Quechua lady and her son sitting next to me.

Somewhere along the Salar de Uyuni trip, in the middle of nowhere Bolivia...a trip that was so lonely in its own right...the feeling of complete isolation from the group I was travelling with...the remoteness of the altiplano...the beauty of an eroded ancient multi-colored volcano struck a chord with me and I teared up then.

Oh my god. I have cried so much already. With the frustration of being here when I promised myself I would be off 'By October / Christmas / February'.

I know I will cry buckets on that plane outta here very very soon.

KG

I've never got too sentimental about a location or view as such but people you meet and experiencing something of deeper meaning, yeah even some big blokes can get emotional.

Had travelled to Vietnam some 13 years ago and the Vietnames have not hidden indications of the fighting they have ben through as a nation, their war museum in Hanoi being the least of it.
I remember one particular photograph showing a train in a station full of the most cheerful soldiers you would ever see anywhere and they were geared up to I suppose be heading for places they might not come back from.
It made think also of photographs and old news footage seen at various times of aussie troops heading off from Australia by ship for fighting overseas abd also looking pretty cheerful for the most of them.

Really brought home to me just how lucky with their meagre lot I had found most Vietnamese people, how much alike the cannon fodder can be and how bloody useless societies are at times to be lead along deathly paths by bloody politicians who sit in their own worlds divorced so much from the common people and surrounded by stiff necked advisors who rarely ever get brought to account along with the war hawks who foster the killing maiming and forgetting of fodder and civilians.

It was an overwhelming moment of helplessness and a feeling of shame, partly because I know if I had been called up for national service, I know that in my younger unenlightened and less wise age of my life I would have probably not thought twice on doing my duty.

Maybe you'll think I'm a bit batty but I tend to cry when I'm sad, depressed, frustrated, or finishing a marathon. When I get super excited (this is where you start to wonder if I am typing this from inside a psychiatric hospital) I start talking to myself, like, walking down the street in Spain my first day I was saying, "God this is so beautiful, the palm trees, it's like Florida but so much better! I can't believe I'm here!" Like there's too many thoughts for me to keep it in my head.

I am a crier anyway, but driving through the hills of BiH on the way to Mostar and seeing all the flattened houses and damage that still exists roughly 12 years after the war... I still cry at the thought of it.

There are plenty of times I cried on my trip that may not have made me cry at home, minor frustrations, bad blood between myself and a fellow traveler, beautiful sunsets... and there are ones (almost dying) that would have made me cry anywhere. I think emotions are high on both ends when you're away from home, in a strange place, and on your own, so little things - happy or sad - can send you over the edge. No harm in a little cry now and again though, mate

It happened to me yesterday. I was sitting at a restaurant in Vientiane when everything I did to get here hit me, quitting my job, leaving my family, spending my savings and taking a chance on a travel writing career. I knew this moment was coming. I tried to prepare for it. Just as the tears formed in my eyes, a man walked past me and smiled. The tears dried. His smile validated everything I was doing. Weird.

My big blub came really near the end of my trip actually - was walking along a deserted beach in Bulungula SA accompanied by the two dogs from the hostel and I was just so overwhelmed by where I'd been, what I done, where I was and the fact that it was soon coming to an end. A mixture of all emotions I think but I can remember it so clearly. Think I was mainly just so proud of myself that I'd got off my arse and done what I wanted to do. Strange but great feeling!!

Today is my birthday. I cried when I sat down and found one deep email from one deep friend who simply opened his heart and showed me what is inside. I cried for the beauty of that moment, and because that was the deepest connection I will have today (well, probably -- it is only 2:30 pm).
I've cried a few times because of a relationship that I left behind, but those cries just had to happen. I guess they all do!

Everytime I left a place where I made some friends, shared sunsets, beers and a few days of my life, I cried inside because for that moment in time, there was a connection.

People come and go into your life for a reason - but come and go they do. I hope to have touched their lives just as they touched mine. Thank you all of you.

On many, many occasions have I felt viscerally lucky to be doing what I'm doing; I suppose I'm lucky in that sense, too.

But to tear up with emotion, that took a walk among the mansions of Hong Kong Island, up at the peak; walking with a long-time friend in Tuebingen, Germany; walking in Old Buda on a gorgeous summer's day; leaving a computer store after a good chat with the clerk who sold me camera memory in Zurich; on the beach in Hawaii on spring break. And there are undoubtedly other moments which are presently eluding me, but the point is that such an overwhelming feeling is a sure sign that you're doing world travel right.

I got choked up the other day at Powell's Books - just reading about the South American leg of our trip (I've been wanting to go to Chile forever).

In fact - I keep getting all choked up everytime I read about anywhere we're going. I must be a softy.

I feel very similar to what Bri describes above right now. When you can reach out and almost touch it for yourself.

I guess I can simply put it down to intrepedation/anticipation of what is about to come I suppose, but I'd compare it to the feeling you'd get if you were about to walk out onto a stage in front of a helluva lot of people to receive acknowledgement of an achievement, or something like that...the nervousness twinned with being overcome with pride in yourself.

I can't wait.