Healing a Broken Heart through Travel

By Christine Garvin On July 24, 2009 · 28 Comments

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Sometimes getting away is just what you need to leave the past behind.

I’ve witnessed quite a few painful breakups over the past couple of months, where people I care about deeply continue to have a very hard time.

My situation is a bit different – it’s not exactly a broken heart, per se.

It is more of a lingering connection that I couldn’t seem to shake without giving myself the medicine that has always worked in the past.

I realize it might be taboo to say that it is a good idea to take off traveling in order to deal with a broken heart. Many would say this is running away, or at least acts as a way to not deal with your feelings head on.

Trust me, I’ve spent months working on how to fully let it go, with all the tools in my mind-body-spirit tool chest. There’s been sitting with my feelings, whenever and wherever they’ve come up; affirmations of better things (and people) to come; rituals to help me let go.

But being in the same small town and wondering when I’d run into him again maintained an energetic tie that I just couldn’t seem to break.

Knowing that my travels would make me quickly forget about him was just icing on the cake.

And so, as the people that lived above me were driving me crazy, I was feeling a general lack of inspiration for the things that usually inspired me, and my two-year-travel itch kicked in, I decided to take off.

Knowing that my travels would make me quickly forget about him was just icing on the cake.

The Healing Power of Travel

I can relate that as an undergrad, four months of the food, wine, and spirited Italians of Florence finally got me over the boy to whom I had been attached for way too many years.

The intense year-long crush (that never would have worked out) was mostly gone after two weeks bouncing around Islington, London. It was never to be remembered once I was white-water rafting on the Zambezi River in Zimbabwe.

Photo: Unlisted Sightings

Traveling allows you to see places and meet people that are so different from the situation you may have been stuck in.

It may, in fact, make you realize you’re a very different person than you thought you were. A better, stronger person.

And I’ll admit it, I’m a wallower. I have to get out into the world to get out of (and over) myself.

I’m certainly not saying you should travel just to get over a person, but I’m not too worried that many of you would. You must have the adventure bug and a love for travel for this option to even work. If you aren’t up for meeting new people and having new experiences, then you’ll just end up wallowing somewhere across the world.

But if the spirit of travel implores you to search for a new perspective, I say go for it and don’t let anyone tell you to stay home.

Have you gotten over a break-up by taking off on an adventure? Share your thoughts below.

Community Connection

Need some help deciding where to go after a break-up? Emily Dilling shares her five favorite trips to deal with a broken heart. If you find yourself ready to move on once on the road, be sure to check out The Laws of Love on the Road.

About The Author

Christine Garvin

Christine Garvin is a certified Nutrition Educator and holds a MA in Holistic Health Education. She is the founder/editor of Living Holistically...with a sense of humor and co-founder of Confronting Love. When she is not out traveling the world, she is busy writing, doing yoga, and performing hip-hop and bhangra. She also likes to pretend living in her hippie town of Fairfax, CA is like being on vacation.

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http://FreedomFromDiets.com Theresa

Christine – this is so poignant. I love your honesty and vulnerability. I love your adventurous spirit and your drive to heal and grow, knowing that perfection is never around the corner, but the journey always is.

Travel can be as simple as a day at the beach alone for some – and for me that healed my broken heart several years ago. I was up to my eyeballs in a full time job and a more than full time school schedule. Studying wasn’t working as a great distraction; rather my memories and tears distracted me from studying. So I was off to the beach. Every Saturday morning at 7 a.m. I would run out of my apartment with a bag full of snacks and another bag full of school books. I’m proud to say I got through Anatomy and Physiology, Biology, and Chemistry with the sounds of ocean waves crashing in my ears. I met surfers and sea shell hunters. I had beers at the local pub and watched baseball games as a “reward” for the end of a long day. And in the end, it was the long drives to and from the beach that let me meet my heartache personally and finally drive away from it, having cast it into the waves that eternally ebb and flow around the world.

Enjoy your travels!

http://matadorabroad.com Tim Patterson

Thanks for sharing that story – there really is something healing about waves.

em

i love you. that’s fabulous. and my recent trip to colorado’s big sky and super fresh air did a world of good! loved the article pictures, too.
http://musictravelwrite.wordpress.com Michelle

It really is the healthy thing to do- if done for the right reasons. Travel lends perspective, period. Great article!
http://www.keepingpaceinjapan.com Turner

I kind of wish I could turn back the clock in that respect. Travel does make you a better, more complete person, but it’s also made it more difficult for me to find someone with whom to share my life and soul. I’d want them to go through the same types of experiences, if not more.
MJ

Christine – I love this article. I don’t think that putting space (whether it be physical or emotional or both) between myself and the person I am trying to get over is “running away”. I think it’s healthy. Because, like you said, traveling can help break us out of our ruts and show us that there is a lot more to us than we thought. I know I certainly felt like a different person when I was backpacking across Europe. Different…and yet, still me.

Hey, we can sit in a therapist’s office and “wallow” for months about how much we miss the person (which definitely has value, there is certainly a time for good old fashioned wallowing, don’t get me wrong) or we can get out there and do some travel therapy!

I think you are brave and I admire you.
MJ

I agree Turner. It’s like there are people who get the whole travel thing and those who don’t. The last guy I dated was like, “I have a mortgage to pay, I can’t afford to travel”. He’s never even been out of the US once. I was like, “Ugh. What the heck do I do with THAT?”

Needless to say, I’m not seeing him anymore.
http://www.marmalade.ca Kelly

I went as far as I could to put some distance between the man that I loved and myself. While not the prime reason for moving to New Zealand, I realized that as long as I saw him on a regular basis, Id never be able to get over him.

In return, Ive found myself in an incredibly beautiful country, and met people I otherwise would not have met. Ive seen mountains for the very first time in my life, and am now in the best job of my career.

As for the man? We remain friends, but for now we rarely communicate. Hopefully when I return to Canada in another eight months we can carry on with our friendship and my heart and my head will stop wanting more.
http://thegreenbackpack.blogspot.com Matty

i think it really depends on HOW you travel…

it would be so easy to spend drunken night after drunken night in hostels or bars or with friends, numbing yourself out to the pain…

…only to find out that no matter where you go, THERE YOU ARE.

if you travel with a purpose – even if that purpose is simply to be with yourself – then the journeys without can become powerful metaphors of the journeys within…

the paths less traveled always have a way of introducing us to just the right experiences, people, and places that our hearts need when we open ourselves to new possibilities.

LOVED your article!
http://www.thelonglayover.blogspot.com Carlo Alcos

“There’s nothing that the road cannot heal” – Conor Oberst

All my heart breaking happened in my younger years, before I really knew about travel. Wish I read this back then. Very honest and upfront…and same goes for all the commenters. There’s another way to heal your broken heart: write about it.
http://matadorabroad.com Tim Patterson

Great article, Christine. I’ve been miserable while traveling after a break-up, but it was better than being miserable at home.
http://vagabonding.com/ Mike Pugh

Totally agree. There’s nothing better than a mind-blowing ramble through a faraway place to mend a broken heart.
christine

Hey everyone, thanks for the great comments. Like Matty said, taking off can end up being a drunkfest filled with trying to push those feelings down, if you aren’t careful (and haven’t attempted to really face your feelings at all). But if you are open to both the feelings moving through you and experiencing what can shift your perspective out in that big, bad world, it can be pretty amazing.

And as Theresa pointed out, you don’t necessarily need to go too far from home.
brittany

i love this article,
i seem to have a similar problem. i went traveling for 6 months after highschool and when i got home nothing seemed to be the same. I have grown so much as a person for thing. But many of my friends had moved on in their lives. My best friend got engadged to a guy i barely know and i never see her now. It has been so hard coping with coming home. I definately went through some depression. I feel like traveling is what i was born to do! everything about it makes me so happy! though it is hard not to feel as though you are running away.
http://www.tevolving.com TjustT

Can travel heal a broken heart? You betcha!

In late 2007 at the age of 46, shortly after completing 2 years of designing, building, financing with every cent of my life savings, and defending from a frivolous and malicious lawsuit brought by unstable neighbors… the home that my partner of 7 years planned to live in through our old age, my partner told me that he was no longer in love with and that he wanted me to move out of the home.

After a short bout of “What ever have I done to deserve this and what in the world am I going to do now?”, I decided to view my broken heart and dreams of the future as an opportunity and gave away everything I owned except for my laptop and what fit in a backpack and hit the road on a 6 month solo hitchhiking and couchsurfing journey through 12 countries. And where am I now? Well as of July 2009, I’m taking a break from travelling to spend the summer in Budva, Montenegro with an artist I met in Bosnia in 2008.

And so I find myself grateful to the man who broke my heart because I am sooo much more alive and my life is soooo much richer now than it ever was before.

Cheers Christine!

T
http://www.tevolving.com

http://www.truequanimity.com/ Christine Garvin

Thanks for your story, T, it’s an inspiring one!

http://robbiewilliamsandme.blogspot.com Ekaterina

I loved this article,and especially as was pointed out already, your honesty and letting your inner self visible.

It is well known that when two people separate due to the distance it is always easier for the person who leaves than for the person who stays…

I was in your situation, and I was the person who stayed…and the town where I was living was miserable for many years! And I couldn’t even leave due to my residence permit at that time!

But it’s what I would do if I could, – I would travel!
thank you for sharing!
N.Chrystine Olson

It’s not just romances that can break your heart. Sometimes the day to day of life American style has me wallowing and seeking out the atlas and my passport…. Transcontinental trek across Canada anyone before the snow flies? ( I have to go somewhere I can bring the new puppy!)

MJ

I couldn’t agree more N. Chrystine. American culture, the way it stands now, it enough to break someone’s heart. Great point and well put!

http://matadortravel Worgrella

It is not only a broken heart on account of a failed relationship that can make you want to hit the road, but also the death of a loved one, but what do you do if you do not have the finances?

http://www.truequanimity.com/ Christine Garvin

Worgrella, good point. Heartbreaks of all types can be healed, or lessened, with travel. I have to say I’m lucky, partly because I live in one of the most expensive places in the US, and partly because of the work I do, that it is cheaper for me to be traveling right now than living at home!

Lindsey

I’m living in the middle east…. Unfortunately for me, she visited and broke my heart here.
We were friends, I thought I’d let go of anything more.
Went to Egypt and Jordan, to see her off to the plane.
On the way, I fell in love again.
And then it was the end.
And she broke my heart there.
So where can I go, to run away?

Traveling can free you from something frivolous, but when it was real…. the path to healing is within. Anything else is pretending.

Glad it worked out for you.
http://www.getoverhernow.com Broken Hearted

Great post and a great conversation. I agree with MJ…

“I don’t think that putting space (whether it be physical or emotional or both) between myself and the person I am trying to get over is “running away”.”

You need that distance to be able to move on in the first place… Otherwise (at least in my experience) you are surrounded by all the familiar things that remind you of your ex…

Plus, being broken hearted (I researched this because Im a nerd) is a full body chemical event, which can and often does put normal brain chemistry out of balance.

That’s why its not uncommon that people spiral into a full blow depression after a painful break up.

One of the things that really helps rebalance the brain is “novelty” or new types of stimulation.

And of course I cant really think of a better way to expose yourself to novelty than traveling.

Just as an aside, excercise really helps with this too. They have done studies on cardiovascular excercise that shows how it helps the brain to “reset” itself.
http://yahoo madiie

ya i kno rght
sarah

Travelling soon on a healing journey ,in this place were i met that girl,everything just reminds me of her,solution is travel !thanks for the advice !!!
Mydreamuniverse

My 3 year relationship with my boyfriend has had more downs than ups. I shoul’ve acted more strongly and smartly since the first time he broke my heart, but sadly i was in love and very amazed at everything he was and had. He has caused so much pain in my heart, but i just can’t let go of him.
My boyfriend is not always bad, he’s also very loving but he over-protects me, he’s the very jealous type of guy, has a bad temper, and he is always very stressed out. He also has an ex-wife, a son, a very rude mother who looks down to me, and for the cherry-on-top… an ex-gf as his secretary in his office. Yeah, i know… i must be stupid! Three years of this situation is too much! I needed a way out!
My family(mom,dad,2 brothers) and I havent travel in a very long time and we decided that we needed and deserved some descent vacations, so we planned a super deluxe trip to the happiest place on earth! =)You must be saying ”Uhm… Disneyworld?”
Yes! You must think this is silly, but Oh My God! This trip helped me so much! I had such a great time with my family. The shows are so pretty they make you cry! The rides make you scream and laugh! I havent felt so happy and worry free in so long. My mind was so into enjoying every single detail, chasing disney characters, taking pictures, etc. that i barely thought of my horrible situation! My boyfriend even got mad because he said i completely forgot about him.
This trip made me realize a lot of things about myself. I found out that I’m a better person than what i thought I was! All of the hate and resentment that i had stored in my heart for these 3 long years, were gone! The people that would hurt my heart just by thinking of them were meaningless now! I needed that 7-day-break from all of those things! (even being away from my controling boyfriend felt so good) I FELT SO AMAZING WITH MYSELF!

Even though i love my boyfriend and i feel good when im around him, deep in my heart i know that this relationship will not work because of the situation and other people involved. =’( So whenever I feel ready to take that huge step and liberate myself, i will be traveling to heal my heart…
Sarah

OMG! I’m so there! I moved to Seattle for this very reason and holy smokes is it working some magic!!! Thanks for sharing this!
Sarah

OMG! I’m so there! I moved to Seattle for this very reason and holy smokes is it working some magic!!! Thanks for sharing this!

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