Travel makes us more complex. Under the right circumstances, each time we visit a new place, we incorporate a bit of it into our own being. We are no longer the “typical New Yorker”, “typical Californian”, or typical name your stereotype here. If I hadn’t traveled to the places I’ve been, I wouldn’t be the same person I am today.--Adventurous Wench

I'm very interested in what makes societies click, how the daily actions of people on a very basic level shape the world as we know it. Socioeconomics, if you want to put it like that. The more I travel the more I learn about this subject, the people, the country I visit and the whole world in general.--Talking Travel with Maria on Travellers Point

Things didn't seem as tranquil as before and one night, as I was sleeping under the shelter that the guys in the campsite had fashioned out of some sticks and my rain poncho, I felt something scuffling near me and I groggily opened my eyes, expecting to be met by assailants, rooting through my posessions, or coming back for something other than my green lowtop converse which had disappeared the day before. Instead, I awoke to find an armadillo scuffling through the campsite, and walking right over my sheet. I felt its weight, and even its hard-edged sharp shell sh-sh-shuffle past me, and I thought to myself, girl-from-Brooklyn-seldom-gone-camping-before: this is a unique situation, don't forget this, don't ever forget this.

And you know what? I haven't.--Traveling the Contours of the Globe

Prior to South Africa, “traveling” for us was living in the lower-classes. Taking public buses, living in the poor/urban sections of town, eating street food, living with bugs and dirt in our room. In Egypt, we ate greasy, carb-centric street food with no nutritional value, got in fights with the local laundry man over a $1 price difference, whiled our time away by hanging out in small alleyways and chatting with the locals. In Israel, we walked next to bullet-riddled buildings listening to the desperation in the residents’ stories and stayed near Damascus gate, otherwise known as “the wrong side of town”. These experiences were new to us: we were learning about a completely different way of living.--The Traveling Duo

Pam blogs about travel and other adventures at Nerd's Eye View. Join the conversation in the Travelbloggers Forum.