The lingering moment

This chapter draws upon recent PhD research that sought to explore the notion of transformative travel" the long-term changes some individuals attribute to their physical travel experiences. From 2005 to 2010, seventy-eight participants from seventeen different nationalities reported their experiences on a purpose-built research website. These experiences were diverse, stretching from pleasure travel, to study abroad, working, volunteering, migration and even military service. A series of longitudinal interviews was conducted every two years via email to investigate the continuing transformation of participants' lives and thinking. These interviews took place in 2007 and 2009/2010 and required participants to reflect upon previous responses (attached to the email), identify any progression of these ideas and behaviours and detail whether further transformations had occurred, not necessarily through physical travel. In addition to gathering these stories, I also engaged in a series of journeys myself" four weeks in East Timor, two months in Southeast Asia (Cambodia and Laos) and two months in West Africa (Niger, Benin, Togo, Burkina Faso, Mali and Côte d'Ivoire). The research argued that travellers do not simply physically relocate themselves to a new location, undergo a transformative experience and return home with a static, altered identity. Individuals inhabit mobile places, alive with physical, communicative, virtual and imaginative flows of people and information. Physical travel becomes just one element within this fluid landscape. This chapter, however, does not focus on transformative travel per se. Rather, it looks at those findings from the research that relate specifically to the return experience.