The Gifts of Traveling the World as a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP)

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Last time we looked at the struggles highly sensitive people face while traveling. You can read that post here, and if you aren’t sure what a highly sensitive person (HSP) is, check out my post What is a Sensitive Nomad to get an overview, but essentially, a highly sensitive person is someone who is more sensitive in every sense of the word. This is someone whose physical senses are more easily stimulated, who feels their emotions easily and deeply, and also someone who may be more in touch with their intuition and psychic senses.

It’s easy to think of all the negatives of being highly sensitive in a loud, fast-paced, and chaotic world where there is plenty that can feel simply too much physically, emotionally, and spiritually. If we can alter our perspective and embrace and support our sensitivity, the world can be quite beautiful and add more meaning to our lives. Let’s look at some ways high sensitivity enriches our travels.

Physical sensitivity for the HSP

In terms of physical sensitivity, being a HSP enables you to more deeply enjoy physical experiences. This means you more deeply experience tasting the flavors of new foreign foods, smelling the beach or the trees in a forest, hearing the sound of foreign languages or the chants and bells of another religion, seeing the aurora borealis, and touching architectural ruins of the past. All of these conjure up meaning and immerse you in appreciating the small things in life. It connects you further with the world, and the external becomes an internal experience.

It can go pretty deep and be dramatic. You could take a bite of the best tiramisu you’ve ever had, drop the fork, fall back in your seat, and everything slows down as you soak up every moment of that feeling, imagining all the ingredients that went into it by someone who must’ve truly cared. That is a true story right there. You could be in the far north at night in the middle of winter, watching the northern lights dance across the sky, and you can’t help but smile at this magical phenomenon and ponder what humanity across time has made of it, how some live their whole lives without the chance to ever see them, and what it means for you in that moment. You could also step into a forest on the first day of autumn, feeling the cool, crisp air and the crunch of fallen leaves under your boots while smelling the pine trees, taking you back to fond childhood memories of holidays and bringing you to a moment of happiness. The experience becomes so much more than just tasting, smelling, or touching something, and this appreciation for the small things adds real richness to life.

If you find that you struggle to savor the small things, how can you slow down in your life? What do you rush through? And why are you in a rush? Think of the little everyday things you enjoy, and add more of that to your life.

Emotional and mental sensitivity for the HSP

Highly sensitive people feel and care deeply. We’re emotionally intelligent and have high empathy, and we value deep and meaningful connections with others and the world.

When we can speak a few phrases of the language of a local and see their face light up because we made that small but meaningful effort to communicate with them, you light up in return and feel like you positively connected with another part of the world. Bonus points if the local is a cat. If we can communicate further in a mutual language, we have the chance to exchange culture and life stories. It encourages you to be open and accepting and expands your views and perhaps making new lifelong friends. Every time it also reminds you of the simple fact that we are all more similar than different no matter where we come from, living our own little lives in this big world, and that’s just a nice feeling to sit with.

Since we care about deep and meaningful connections, we also prefer authentic experiences over touristy ones. We’ll still probably enjoy the few main attractions, but we’re also going to seek out the local foods to try, explore the nature nearby, and learn about the history and culture of the area. We might want to try living like someone else for a day or week just to see what it’s like to broaden our horizons and understand another way of life.

There’s also that special fleeting feeling of when you leave one place and are on your way to another. It’s the very same as when you quit a job, and you’re in those days before your next one, or you’ve just graduated or finished a long course of study and are in the period in between that and the next thing. There’s that feeling of finality, bittersweetness, and excitement for the unknowns of what’s coming. I love that feeling and get to experience it whenever I’m in between places after having spent several weeks somewhere. I’ll be on the train or a flight saying goodbye to the past, reflecting, and watching the world continue to turn. Moments like these let you zoom out and take in life in a big picture way. It acts as a bit of a reset, slows you down, and is meaningful.

If you struggle to make connections with others on your travels, try just learning a few phrases of the local language, and people will really appreciate it. Go to a social meetup to meet locals or other travelers, and if there aren’t any, try a class at the gym or other hobby. If all else fails, find the neighborhood cats. I’m kidding, but not entirely. And sometimes you’re in a period of needing solitude, which is absolutely fine, and you are still making a meaningful connection by taking care of yourself or appreciating the area through learning about the culture, history, etc.

Spiritual sensitivity for the HSP

Lastly in a spiritual sense, this can go a few ways. A highly sensitive person may be able to go to historic or spiritual/religious sites and tap into the energy of the area, immersing themselves into another world within their mind. If we manage to tune out the influence of others nearby, meditate a little, and see what we can pick up, we might get psychic hits as images, words, sounds, or feelings in our mind that tell us about the place. We get the chance to time travel a little, deeply sensing a place, or perhaps connecting more to God/Spirit and past lives. This can be a magical experience if you open yourself to it.

Ancestry is another aspect to consider. If you live far from where your family came from, this is especially meaningful. Part of understanding you and where you came from is to learn about your roots and physically visit those places of home. It’s not mainstream news yet, but generational trauma is genetic. Plus there’s probably a lot more passed down that we are not yet able to scientifically prove. I have roots in Poland from over 100 years ago, and I made the trip a couple years ago to visit the lands where my ancestors came from. It was profound to track down their life stories and travels, and when I visited their land, I felt a sense of home and like I wasn’t alone. This is a spiritual experience to think about all who came before you to create you and to notice what experiences, characteristics, and stories are replaying in you.

Lastly worth mentioning is astrocartography, which is the astrology of location. The concept behind it is that by visiting different places in the world, you are activating different stories or parts of your consciousness. Our intuition often pulls us to certain places for a reason, and astrocartography is a reflection of that as well. I think our own intuition is the most important thing to follow, but consulting your astrocartography map can be an incredible tool to determine where to go next on your travels (as well as to relocate for any other reason). If you want to learn more about that, you can read An Intro to Astrocartography.

The spiritual side of sensitivity comes down to feeling connection between our soul or spirit and the entire rest of the world on a deeper layer. If you struggle to feel a spiritual connection to a place or just to tap into your spiritual senses at all, take a look at your nervous system. Are you in adrenal overdrive all the time, living a fast-paced lifestyle? Do you have moments of stillness in your daily life? Is there enough peace and quiet within you to be able to listen to your intuition or inner voice? Slow it down. Do nothing. Rest. Do what helps you get grounded and calm, and you’ll begin to feel your extra senses turn back on.

Putting it all together, traveling as a highly sensitive person is truly special. If we can embrace our sensitivity, we can be masters at slowing down to appreciate the small things, bonding with others in a deep and meaningful way, and connecting with our intuition and something greater around us.

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Hygge for the Highly Sensitive Person (HSP)

An Intro to Astrology

Tuning into Your Intuition as a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP)