How Travel Transformed My Life – 7 Trips That Changed Everything

Last Updated: April 2026

Back in 2008, I was broken. Not physically, but in every other way that mattered. I had lost interest in work, in people, in the mornings, in the evenings, in almost everything that made life worth living. I was in the darkest phase of my life and I could not see a way out. Then, one day, I decided to drive to the hills. I did not have a plan. I just needed to move. That one decision changed my life, and over the next few years, travel did not just transform me. It saved me.

This article is deeply personal. It is the story of how seven specific trips pulled me out of depression, gave me courage, reconnected me with my family, and turned me into the person who eventually started this blog. If you are going through something difficult right now and wondering if getting out there will help, I want you to know, it did for me. I hope my story gives you that push.

For those who have been following the blog for a while, you might remember this was originally published as part of the “Alive is Awesome” series, the name this blog carried before it became Discover With Dheeraj. The soul of that name lives on in everything I write here.

Why Did I Start Traveling in the First Place?

I get asked this question often. People see the blog, the community, the trips, and assume I was always this way. That I grew up dreaming of Ladakh and Spiti. The truth is far less romantic. I started traveling because I was trying to survive. November 2008. I was down, out, alone, and almost surrendered to the most difficult phase of my life. I suddenly thought of pursuing my passion for driving to restart my life. I had always loved being behind the wheel. Even in my lowest moments, the idea of driving through unknown roads gave me something to hold on to.

The Himalayas have always had a history of being associated with peace and calmness. So I decided to have a treatment I called “Nirvana at the Himalayas.” I went into the mountains to find answers to questions that haunted me every moment. The biggest one being, “Can I come back to who I was?” The answer came, not in words but in experiences, one trip at a time.

How Did the First Trip Change Things? The Drive to Chail

I still remember the first ever trip I made to drive into the hills. It was a drive to Chail, Kufri, and Shimla. I did not expect much. I just needed to get away from my room, from the silence that was eating me alive. As I hit the Himalayas, there was a magical feeling which started to creep in as soon as I took a right from Kadaghat towards Chail.

The trail was lovely. Least of traffic, thick dense forest on both sides, and I was sitting by the road eating the packed omelets from home which suddenly tasted like never before. After a long time, I smiled. I smiled out of no reason. My childhood friend who was with me was happy to see that smile after such a long time. That moment, I knew something had shifted.

We reached Chail, saw the famous cricket ground, went for a walk on some lovely trails around the town, and went back to sleep. It was the first time in months that I slept without a tear in my eyes. It was surely a start of a change, a change for a cause, a change for making me happy. I did not realize it fully before I came back home from that wonderful driving trip of about 40 hours.

In between, I made a few more similar trips. The one to Auli stands out. Each trip triggered a positive change in my lifestyle, slowly building on the one before. But the real turning point was yet to come.

What Happens When Travel Almost Kills You? The Chandratal Trek

Things really started to take a U-turn after the trekking trip to Chandratal, a trip where I almost got myself killed. People at the base urged us not to attempt the trek because of snow on the trail making it dangerously slippery. But I was in a negative trance. I did not respect my own life enough to listen.

We went out for the trek with some AMS symptoms (at least now I know what those were ;)). I was having an incredible time, feeling my depressive thoughts melt away with every step higher, before I slipped into a water crossing. My feet got completely drenched. Snowfall started. The weather turned on its head.

The guide asked us to move back fast before we freeze right there. It became a run for survival. And then I slipped on one of the snow slopes. In that moment, as I felt myself falling, my entire life went through a flashback. Suddenly, I felt I have to live. The guide saved me from the fall and we reached back safely to the base at Batal. We got some fire inside the dhaba, I puked a couple of times, and then went to sleep.

The next morning when I woke up, I was not the same person. I loved the sun rays hitting the tent. I loved the snow outside, the stones, the absolute rawness of nature around me. I was missing my family. I knew in that moment that the depression had died the previous day, in that desperate run to save my life. I was no longer the person who did not care about living.

If you have ever been in a situation where you suddenly realize the value of your own life, you will know what I am talking about. It is not poetic. It is terrifying. And then it is liberating. Chandratal gave me that. I went there broken and came back with a reason to live.

Dheeraj Sharma

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Can Travel Teach You to Celebrate Life? Goa Said Yes

I came back from Chandratal as a positive person. I started loving and respecting life again. Loving the things around me, the smiles around me, and most importantly, the people around me. I reconnected with the world, got a new phone number, which was quite a surprise for many people who knew me professionally. They could never imagine one person could undergo such a dramatic change. But those who knew me longer were simply happy to see the old me back.

Meanwhile, seeing me living life in a lively manner, my parents introduced me to the next stage. I got married to my beautiful wife. And then we went to Goa for what was essentially our post-honeymoon trip. Goa re-introduced me to the concept of celebration. The golden sunsets at the beaches, the open culture, the Valentine’s party, the night outs, the smiling faces everywhere, great food and of course the beer 😀

It was a fun-filled trip that made me realize something important. Travel was not just about healing anymore. It was also about celebrating the fact that you are alive. That realization hit me hard in Goa, sitting at Candolim Beach watching the sun go down with the person I love. “Alive is Awesome” stopped being just a phrase. It became how I felt every single day.

What Does It Mean to Be Tested Beyond Your Limits? Ladakh, 2010

Then came the trip that changed everything at a level I was not prepared for. My first journey to Ladakh. A trip I had wanted desperately for so long. A trip that got canceled multiple times, either right at the start or midway because of landslides. God had chosen the right time. If people say there is no such thing as destiny, I disagree.

Fate threw everything it had at us. The heaviest of rains, the longest of traffic jams, a Scorpio rolling all the way into the Beas River right in front of us killing four people, landslides blocking the road, deep slushes forcing us to leave my car at a hotel in Manali and continue further. But destiny wanted me to reach Ladakh on a precise day.

It had been just three days into Ladakh when the nightmare happened. The devastating flash floods and cloudbursts of Leh Ladakh in August 2010. I feared death, because now I had started loving my life, my family, my wife, myself. And here I was, seeing death all around, hearing cries everywhere, getting into mini flash floods, running to save our lives from the unknown. We were stuck there for four days. Sleeping with 2,000 odd people atop a mountain with rains pouring down. Queuing up at 3 AM at the airport gate with tickets but boarding passes given on first-come-first-serve basis. A stranded car far away from home. A worried list of people back home waiting for news.

We made it back home in one piece. And that experience made me stronger, more focused, more grateful. My priorities shifted permanently. I started spending more time with my family and friends instead of being buried in office work. The thought process changed. I stopped cribbing over routine irritations of professional life, traffic jams, silly workplace politics. I realized the truth of being with family and what effect it has on your entire lifestyle. I live with a purpose now. The purpose to be happy and keep my family happy.

My soul has never returned from Ladakh since I first visited it. Each time I go back, Ladakh makes me fall more in love with it and its people. For me, there is no other place on earth quite like it. If you are considering a trip to Ladakh, here is the most common itinerary to help you plan. But keep in mind, Ladakh does not just show you landscapes. It shows you yourself.

How Do You Face a Fear That Travel Itself Created? The Tungnath Snow Trek

Ever since I returned from Ladakh, even seeing dark weather in Delhi produced feelings of uneasiness. If the sky went dark, I started to fear cloudbursts. That fear stopped me for almost eight months from venturing into the hills. Travel had healed me, but it had also left me with a new wound.

Then, realizing this fear might become a permanent phobia, my wife told me to face it head-on. Go right back into the Himalayas and confront it. So I went on a self-drive trip for a snow trek to Tungnath. I was not the fittest person at the time. I could barely run without gasping for breath. Climbing to 3,600 meters was not going to be easy, and the soft snow made things much worse.

When we reached Ukhimath, the weather changed and I froze. Not from the cold but from the fear. I could not bring myself to continue towards Duggalbitta. I gave it deep thought the whole night. The next morning, with the same grey skies overhead, we pushed towards Chopta. And as we walked, the fear started to fade.

After a couple of hours of trekking up from Chopta, the weather cleared. And the mighty Tungnath snow trek was done. I returned home with a different frame of mind. The dark clouds no longer paralyzed me. There was still an unknown feeling lingering, but the phobia was broken. Travel had created the fear, and travel had cured it.

Can Driving Heal Your Soul? The Spiti Valley Sprint

With the fear confronted and largely overcome, I decided to experiment with something else. My other passion: driving. With friends, I planned a sprint over the Hindustan-Tibet Highway. A fast-paced 4-5 day drive through Spiti Valley that concluded with a mammoth non-stop drive from Kaza back to Delhi.

For those five days, I drove like a free soul. No itinerary pressure, no fear, no emotional weight. Just the road ahead, the mountains around, and the sound of the engine. It was one of those rare trips where I did not seek anything from travel. I just enjoyed the Himalayas and the drive. The Spiti Valley has a way of stripping away the noise from your head. The barren landscapes, the cold desert, the isolation. Everything unnecessary falls away and you are left with just yourself and the road.

That trip taught me something important. Travel does not always have to be about transformation or healing or overcoming something. Sometimes it can just be about pure, simple joy. And that is okay.

What Happens When You Return to the Place That Broke You? Ladakh Again, 2012

Days passed and so did many ugly moments in life. But travel had made me stronger. I used to break easily before, but now I stood tall in front of problems. There had been many things I kept trying to overcome within myself, and travel gave me the space to work through them, away from the fixed routines of civilized life.

Finally, I decided to go back. Back to Ladakh in 2012. Back to the place where I had watched people die. Back to where I had feared for my own life. Almost all nine days we had dark clouds following us. And this time, I started kinda loving them (definitely not for what they did to the colors in pictures, though ;)).

And then, as if destiny wanted to test me one final time, I got trapped again. All flights canceled due to inclement weather and heavy snowfall on the day of return. But this time, I was the least affected person at the airport. I saw many people crying, panicking, and it refreshed the memories of 2010. But now those memories came with a smile, not with dread. I felt good. I felt alive.

That was the moment I knew the transformation was complete. Ladakh had broken me and Ladakh had rebuilt me. There is a reason I have kept going back, year after year, and why I have spent the last 15+ years writing about it on this blog. If you are planning your own Ladakh journey, make sure to check our complete permits guide and Manali-Leh Highway guide before you go.

How Has Travel Changed Me as a Person? The Bigger Picture

Looking back at these seven trips, each one shifted something fundamental inside me. Chail gave me my first smile in months. Chandratal gave me the will to live. Goa taught me to celebrate. Ladakh in 2010 rearranged my priorities permanently. Tungnath showed me how to face fear. Spiti reminded me that joy does not always need a reason. And Ladakh in 2012 proved that the transformation was real and lasting.

But beyond these specific trips, travel has changed me in ways that are harder to put into words. Let me try anyway.

Simplicity. When you spend enough time in Himalayan villages, you start to question everything you own. Families in Chitkul, in Padum, in remote corners of Lahaul live with so much less than we do in Delhi. And they are not unhappy. In fact, they are often more content. That observation did not just stay in my head. It changed how I live at home too. I buy less, crave less, and find more satisfaction in what I already have.

Patience. You cannot rush through the Himalayas. The road will close when it wants to. The weather will turn when it wants to. The bus will come when it comes. Years of dealing with this has made me genuinely more patient in daily life. When things do not go to plan at work or at home, I no longer spiral. The mountains taught me that most delays are temporary. Most problems sort themselves out if you wait calmly.

Dheeraj Sharma

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Gratitude. After you have survived a flash flood and slept on a mountainside with 2,000 strangers, a normal day at home feels like a luxury. I am grateful for running water, for electricity that does not cut out, for a warm bed, for the fact that my family is safe under one roof. Travel gave me that perspective, not by showing me exotic places, but by showing me how fragile everything is.

Community. This one is perhaps the most unexpected transformation. When I started traveling, I was trying to escape people. I wanted to be alone. But the Himalayas kept putting me in situations where I needed strangers. The dhaba owner in Batal who gave us fire and food when we were hypothermic. The Army personnel during the Leh floods who helped evacuate tourists. Fellow travelers who became lifelong friends. Over the years, these connections led me to build the DwD Community and organize DoW Mega Meets and travel calendars. What started as a solo escape became something deeply communal.

What Would I Tell Someone Going Through a Tough Phase?

If you are reading this and going through something difficult right now, here is what I would say. You do not need to plan an epic Ladakh road trip to start feeling better. Start small. Drive to the nearest hill station. Take a bus to a town you have never been to. Walk through a forest. The point is not the destination. The point is to break the pattern of sitting still and drowning in your thoughts.

In my experience, the Himalayas have a unique ability to put things in perspective. When you are standing at 14,000 Ft with nothing but snow and silence around you, the things that seemed so important back in the city suddenly feel very small. That is not escapism. That is clarity. And you bring that clarity back home with you.

However, I want to be honest. Travel alone did not fix everything. I also leaned on my family, my friends, and eventually my wife. Travel gave me the space and the shock I needed to start healing. But the people in my life did the rest. Hence, if you are struggling, please also reach out to the people who care about you. Do not try to do it all alone on a mountain. Use travel as a catalyst, not a replacement for human connection.

From “Alive is Awesome” to “Discover With Dheeraj”

The name “Alive is Awesome” was born from this transformation. It was literally how I felt after these trips pulled me back to life. The blog started as a way to document my experiences and share them with anyone who might need the same kind of push. Over the years, as the content grew from personal stories to detailed travel guides, itineraries, and road status updates, the blog evolved into Discover With Dheeraj. But the soul remains the same.

Every guide I write about responsible travel in the Himalayas, every taxi rate list I maintain, every bus schedule I update, it all comes from the same place. A deep gratitude for what the mountains gave me when I needed them the most. I want to make sure that when you go to these places, you go prepared, you go safe, and you get the same kind of experience that changed my life.

In the words of Wikipedia, metamorphosis means “a biological process by which an animal physically develops after birth, involving a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in the animal’s body structure.” I would say that traveling has let me undergo exactly that kind of metamorphosis, and it is still going on. Traveling has given me a reason to love, a reason to smile, a reason to live, and yes, a reason to feel “Alive is Awesome.”

If any of this resonated with you, I would love to hear your story too. Feel free to share it in the comments or join the DwD Community where thousands of fellow travelers share their own transformations, big and small. And if you are planning your first trip to the Himalayas, check out our guides on how to reach Manali from Delhi and the top mistakes people make on a Ladakh trip.

Travel well, travel responsibly, and always remember that being alive is, in fact, awesome 🙂 …

Frequently Asked Questions

How did travel help with depression and mental health?

In my personal experience, travel provided a complete change of environment that broke the cycle of negative thoughts. The physical act of driving, trekking, and being in nature forced my mind to focus on the present moment. The near-death experience at Chandratal was the turning point where I realized I wanted to live. However, I always recommend combining travel with support from family and friends. Travel is a powerful catalyst but it works best alongside human connection.

What was the most transformative trip in Dheeraj’s life?

The Chandratal trek where I almost lost my life was the single most transformative experience. Slipping on a snow slope and seeing my life flash before me made me realize I wanted to live. That one moment erased months of depression. The first Ladakh trip in 2010, where I survived the devastating flash floods, was a close second because it permanently changed my priorities toward family and gratitude.

Can travel really change your personality?

Based on my experience, absolutely yes. I went from being a person who had given up on life to someone who actively celebrates every day. Travel taught me simplicity from Himalayan villages, patience from road closures and weather delays, gratitude from surviving dangerous situations, and community from the strangers who helped me along the way. These were not temporary feelings, they became permanent parts of who I am.

What is the “Alive is Awesome” series on Discover With Dheeraj?

“Alive is Awesome” was the original name of this blog before it became Discover With Dheeraj. The series documented my personal transformation through travel, starting from a deep depression in 2008 to becoming a full-time travel blogger and community builder. The phrase represents the core belief that life is worth celebrating, a realization that came to me through years of traveling in the Indian Himalayas.

How do I start traveling for mental well-being?

Start small. You do not need an epic Ladakh road trip. Drive to the nearest hill station, take a bus to a town you have never been to, or go for a walk in a forest. The point is to break the pattern of sitting still. In my experience, the Himalayas have a unique ability to put things in perspective, but any change of scenery helps. Most importantly, combine travel with reaching out to people who care about you.

What was Dheeraj’s first ever road trip?

My first ever trip was a drive to Chail, Kufri, and Shimla in November 2008. It was a roughly 40-hour trip with a childhood friend. We drove from Delhi, took a right from Kadaghat towards Chail, and spent time walking the trails around the famous cricket ground. It was nothing extraordinary by Himalayan standards, but it was the first time in months that I smiled without a reason. That trip started everything.