I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve felt a little more me while wandering a new city than when I’m sitting in my own living room.
Maybe you’ve felt that, too—that click of inner alignment the moment you step off a plane, find the nearest coffee, and let the unfamiliar rearrange your senses.
Why does that happen for some of us more than others?
From years of writing about psychology (and years before that running risk models as a financial analyst), I’ve learned there’s a pattern.
If you tend to feel most yourself away from home turf, chances are you carry seven distinct traits.
You don’t have to collect passport stamps to see them—though stamps do help bring them out to play.
Let’s dig in.
1. You’re high in openness
Some people see an unpronounceable street sign and feel stress. You see it and feel alive.
New smells, new sounds, new rules—novelty doesn’t shut you down; it wakes you up.
As Mark Twain put it, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”
It’s not just about scenic trains and street food; it’s about growing a bigger mind by bumping into bigger worlds. When you’re wired for openness, those bumps don’t bruise; they broaden.
This isn’t only poetry. Research on students who studied abroad found that sojourning was linked with increases in openness and agreeableness, and a decrease in neuroticism—even after accounting for the fact that more adventurous folks are likelier to go abroad in the first place.
Translation: novelty doesn’t just attract open people; it can grow our capacity for openness.
Try this: When you can’t travel, practice “micro-novelty.” Take a different route to work, order the dish you can’t pronounce, or switch your phone language for a week. The trait strengthens with use.
2. You have flexible identity boundaries
Do you notice how your voice, posture, or pace changes in different countries?
Maybe you negotiate prices with a playful boldness in Marrakech and speak with quieter confidence in Kyoto.
That’s not being fake; that’s having context-sensitive identity—a flexible, responsive sense of self.
At home, we’re surrounded by people who “know” us, which locks us into stale roles.
Abroad, those role expectations dissolve. You get to try on a new cadence, a different kindness, a stronger spine. You’re still you—just more fully expressed.
Try this: Identify one “home role” that feels tight (the always-on helper, the jokester, the quiet one). Experiment with a 5% shift in a safe conversation this week. Tell your story a new way.
3. You trust your own agency
Some of us quietly know: I can reinvent when I need to. That belief tends to surface abroad.
You figure out the metro with zero data, you get comfortable asking for help, you pivot when a plan falls apart at noon.
I felt this after a long day of wrong turns in Lisbon. I never found the bookstore I was chasing, but I did find the confidence to navigate by curiosity instead of certainty.
The next morning, the coffee tasted different. Not better—earned.
Agency doesn’t always roar. Sometimes it’s just the steady rhythm of “I can figure this out.”
When that drumbeat gets louder away from home, it’s a sign this trait lives in you already.
Try this: Once a week, choose “manual mode.” Don’t over-GPS the plan—give yourself two hours to get somewhere with only a paper map or one saved screenshot. Let your problem-solving muscle carry the weight.
4. You’re attuned to language—in all its forms
You don’t have to speak five languages to be good at reading them.
You notice the tilt of a shopkeeper’s head, the half-second pause before a yes, the way laughter lands softly in one culture and brightly in another.
Or maybe you do love words. As Ludwig Wittgenstein famously wrote, “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”
New words bring new edges to the map—edges we only find when we stretch our vocabularies (and our listening).
Try this: Learn ten phrases in the dominant language of your neighborhood’s immigrant-owned spots. Then use them—imperfectly. Watch how people open up when you try.
5. You’re comfortable with productive discomfort
You don’t panic when the grocery store is a labyrinth or the café etiquette feels mysterious.
You might blush, mess up, laugh—then try again. That willingness to feel awkward for a few minutes allows for hours of ease later.
At home, social friction often feels personal. Abroad, it feels informational: Oh, the line works like this. Oh, you greet like that.
That shift—from self-judgment to simple learning—is a superpower. It turns discomfort into data.
Try this: The next time your chest tightens in a new setting, narrate what’s happening as if you’re an anthropologist. “Interesting: people pay at the counter first, then sit.” Observation loosens anxiety.
6. You value belonging on your own terms
You may not crave a single, capital-H Home so much as a web of micro-homes—the tea stall that knows your order, the quiet bench in a city square, the running path that feels safe at dawn.
Belonging, for you, is practice, not place.
That’s why being abroad can feel honest. There’s no pressure to perform the fixed version of yourself that your childhood room might remember.
You belong because you’re present, generous, and curious, not because everyone shares your backstory.
Try this: Build a “belonging kit” you can deploy anywhere: a few phrases, a gratitude habit (tip well, thank specifically), and a small ritual (return your dishes, stack your tray, hold the door). It’s amazing how fast communities welcome consistent kindness.
7. You turn experiences into meaning
Plenty of people collect photos. You collect stories—and you use them. You notice how a missed train softened your perfectionism.
You realize the elderly baker’s daily rhythm taught you something about patience. You capture these patterns and feed them back into your life at home.
That reflective loop is what keeps the “abroad version” of you alive on ordinary Tuesdays. You don’t just chase difference; you metabolize it.
Try this: End each day with a two-line journal prompt: “Today I learned…” and “So tomorrow I will…” Over time, you’ll build a bridge between your traveling self and your home self—no plane ticket required.
Putting it together
If you’ve felt more you abroad, you’re not imagining it.
You likely have a healthy dose of openness, flexible identity boundaries, a strong sense of agency, language attunement, comfort with productive discomfort, belonging on your own terms, and a meaning-making habit.
Those aren’t vacation tricks. They’re durable traits you can train.
When everyday life starts to feel narrow, I revisit the reminders that keep those muscles awake: Twain’s nudge toward broader views, the philosopher’s prompt about language and world-size, and that stack of studies showing we really do change with exposure to difference.
They’re guardrails when routine tries to shrink me back down.
And if you’re wondering where to begin, start small and close:
The “abroad you” isn’t a different person. It’s the same you, given the right conditions to breathe.
Bring a little of those conditions home, and watch how your life expands to fit you—everyday, not just overseas.