✈️ 80 Countries, Indian Passport: What Travel Taught Me About Life

Leading a Balanced life allows me to follow my passion - Travel. In this series, I talk to you about my travel experiences and tips. On my birthday here I'm talking to you about why I love to travel.

“Travel doesn’t change you. It reveals you.”– Probably someone in an airport lounge after three espressos and zero regrets.

Let’s get the brag out of the way: I’ve been to 80 countries and as I write this am traveling to add 5 more to this list, on my way to 100!!
That’s eight-zero. Not “eight if you include airport layovers and that one accidental boat detour into another nation.” Eighty. Stamped, boarded, survived.

But this isn’t a flex. It’s a reflection. Because along the way, I learned more about life than any TED Talk could offer. Here’s what 80 countries (and a few thoroughly abused passports) taught me about balance, people, and why packing three backup jackets is a trauma response.

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📍 1. There’s No Perfect Country. Or Person.

Im always asked what is your favourite country? How does the beach in Hawaii compare to that in Bali!! Hmmm…

You can’t say you’ve found your “soul city” until you’ve been both enchanted and betrayed by it.

🇯🇵 Tokyo? Stunning, but I left my umbrella there

🇭🇰 Hongkong? Where I learned Dimsum is a breakfast, lunch and dinner!!
🇫🇷 Paris? Dreamy, but also the site of my greatest croissant-related humiliation.
(Pro tip: Never challenge a Parisian baker on “how long puff pastry takes.”)

Every place, like every person, comes with quirks, flaws, and unexpected moments. That’s where the real magic (and hilarity) lives.

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🎒 2. Pack Light. Literally and Emotionally.

My family of 5 traveled for 7 weeks to the USA & UK. And within the US, we went from San Diego to New York with many halts in the middle…you get the picture. We carried one suitcase…yes one check in bag…and no, not one for each person, but one for all 5 of us!! How and what tips..I will get to it in a separate post (I promise)!

By country #17, I realized that carrying three pairs of “just-in-case” shoes is less about style and more about unresolved emotional baggage.

Same goes for:

• Old grudges

• Expectations

• And travel buddies who say “Let’s stay in touch!” after 48 hours in Bali, then ghost you faster than a budget airline refund.

💡 Rule of thumb: If it doesn’t spark joy or fit in a carry-on, leave it (and them) behind.

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🍢 3. Street Food is Life. Or… Diarrhea. But Also Life.

From Satays in Jakarta to Emapanadas in Lima, if it’s fried, on a stick, and costs less than a dollar, I’ve eaten it.
Sometimes twice.
Sometimes with consequences…oh don’t even remind me of the time i was in a government hospital (more the loo) in Thailand!!

But those tastes, those sidewalk flavors—they’re how you feel a place.

➡️ Want proof? Read about this stinky tofu ( in Taipei that made me question all previous life decisions. Yes, it was that good.

Worth the risk. Probably.

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🕰️ 4. Time > Money

Money can be earned back.
But that spontaneous conversation with the Rwandan driver about the Rwandan genocide - yes, the Hutus & Tutsis? How he has learned to forgive even though he knows who killed 16 members of his family!!! Very tragic but maan did I learn life lessons!!

Or on a lighter note, That one sunrise in Gold Coast you almost missed because you hit snooze?

Those are the dividends.

💸 Your ROI on travel isn’t measured in “sights seen.” It’s in serendipity, in joy-per-minute, even in life lessons and in delightful detours.

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🤝 5. People Are Mostly Good.

I lost my wallet in Heathrow Airport.
Retrieved it many weeks later and not a cent was removed!! All intact!!

In Spain, a taxi driver invited us to dinner because “you looked homesick.” (He wasn’t wrong.). In Moscow, we have taken random taxis, totally drunk, at wee hours and never gotten into trouble!!

Sure, there are weirdos. But overwhelmingly, the world is filled with folks who will help you when:

• You’re lost

• Your backpack is on upside down

• You’re clearly about to cry into your boarding pass

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🧭 6. You Don’t Find Yourself. You Become Yourself.

If you think travel will hand you enlightenment like a chocolate at hotel turndown service… it won’t.

But what it will do is this:

• Get you lost

• Feed you something suspicious

• Make you dance at a stranger’s wedding in Kazakhstan (yes that did happen)

• Let you breathe on a bench somewhere random, and think, “This. This is what life is.”

Travel doesn’t give you the answers.
It gives you better questions.
And the quiet to hear your own voice answering them.

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✈️ Final Boarding Call

After 80 countries, I’ve started making gratitude lists :

• For the strangers who touched us deeply

• For the sunsets I didn’t photograph

• For the nights when the WiFi didn’t work and I finally just looked up at the stars

• For the faux pas made in languages that made everyone laugh

Travel didn’t fix me.
It didn’t change me.
But it did reveal me.

And somewhere between a stormy ferry ride in Croatia and a dusty roadside tea shop in Iran, I realized:

Home isn’t a place. It’s a feeling you carry when you’re okay being slightly lost.

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👣 Next up in this travel series:
🧳 “My Rules of Travel (Or How Not to Be That Guy)” — coming soon.

✍️ If this post made you smile, nod, or mentally start planning your next trip… share it with someone who’d eat that street taco or dosa with you. No questions asked.

— Ramkey
Founder, Philosopher, Overpacker @ The Balanced Life Project