I had been to Ho Chi Minh City once before, so I already knew what to expect: There would be streetwise kids hawking postcards, maps, bootlegged books and more in the touristy parts of town. I was not looking forward to their aggressive sales tactics. Before I landed in Vietnam this time, I steeled myself for what I knew was the inevitable onslaught of these kids.

Sure enough, I hadn’t walked more than two blocks on Dong Khoi Street, the city’s main tourist thoroughfare, when a girl approached me.

She started in with the usual postcard pitch. I continued walking and repeated, ‘No, thank you.’ But when I got trapped at an intersection by a red light, she changed her plea. “Please, I don’t want money, just milk for my baby sister,” she begged.

At that point I turned and REALLY looked at her. When I did, I didn’t see a cunning street kid, but an earnest girl asking for something useful that would help her family.

I relented and agreed to go with her to a store. We walked several blocks, chatting all the while.

Her English was perfect and I learned that her name was Da`o. She was almost 13 years-old and had several younger siblings, the smallest of which was the baby for whom she needed the milk. 

Her father, she said, had left her family for another woman. She went to school in the mornings and sold postcards in the afternoons to earn money for her family.

Along the way, we joked with each other. I was impressed with her sense of humor and our easy laughter that crossed cultural divides. She suggested we played rock, paper, scissors and beat me every time!

By the time we reached the store and found the powdered milk Da`o needed, I admit I liked her so much that I bought the largest size, which I hoped would last a month. 

The transaction done, we walked to the nearest corner. Da’o gave me a big hug, a thank you, and went happily off toward her neighborhood.

As I headed back to my hotel, I reflected on the experience and tried to decide whether I had been duped. I realized it didn’t matter.

If there’s anything travel has taught me, it’s that you never know a person’s backstory and true character until you take the time to find out.

When my son was eight months old, I left him with my husband and went on a two-week trekking tour of northern Thailand . This was the first time I would be away from my son for any length of time, and it was hard for me to leave my baby.

Before I was married, before I was a mom, I had no problem backpacking through foreign lands without an itinerary. On this trip, however, I was forced to acknowledge my life had changed.

My husband was nervous about sending the mother of his young son to the other side of the world. I was nervous, too. My husband worried for my safety, but I worried about homesickness. After so many months with a baby by my side, would I feel lonely?

I booked with a tour group so my husband would feel like I had a plan, but traveling with a group also meant I wouldn’t be alone. Yet I wouldn’t meet up with my group until I got to Thailand, and before I got there I had to connect through South Korea .

The cheapest flight I could find landed me in Bangkok at 1 a.m., and I was anxious about this. I had a hotel reservation in the city, but I would be arriving all alone in the middle of the night in a country where I didn’t speak the language.

During my layover in the Seoul airport, I befriended a group of travelers who’d been to Bangkok before. When I told them I was scared about landing in the city so late, they assured me they would help me find my way.

The whole gang waited for me while I passed through customs, exchanged money, found an Internet station and typed a quick email home. They shared their cab into the heart of Bangkok with me and dropped me at my hotel before heading to theirs.

The next morning I met up with my organized group and the following days were a beautiful Thailand blur. I made friends with several tour mates, which helped me buffer my homesickness, but I will always remember the kindness paid to me by that small group of strangers who shepherded me into Bangkok late at night. I never saw them again. 

Travelers are an amazing bunch of people. They look out for one another, give helpful tips and split cab rides. The magical, immediate kinship that is formed by absolute strangers on the road has helped me feel less alone, more confident and more willing to go where I haven’t been before. 

The past four years have been years of change. I got divorced. Then I moved, twice. Then my only child left for college.

Suddenly, my house was quiet and I felt a gap inside. I realized I didn't really know who I was. I was no longer somebody's wife, and I was no longer a full-time mother. I was accountable for no one.

I flew to Spain and Portugal for a whirlwind trip. The journey invigorated me and when it was done, I wasn't satisfied at the thought of going home. I wanted to travel more.

Luckily, an opportunity came up for me to move to Gisborne, New Zealand for three months. Everything about the move seemed perfect. It would be summer there, which meant I could skip Minnesota's brutal winter. Plus, I would be working in an area museum archiving photographs. I would live in a little house in a local neighborhood. How could I resist? I put everything I owned in storage, gave up my lease and got on the plane.

I was excited to put down some roots. I wasn't going to be a tourist; I was going to stay a while and become a member of the community. I very much wanted to feel like I fit in somewhere.

During the first few weeks, I was very tentative. The house creaked in scary ways. I had trouble crossing the street as traffic in New Zealand moves on the opposite side of the road.

But steadily, life regained a comfortable rhythm. I joined the gym, bought a bike, made friends, learned to surf, and I even learned to drive on the wrong side of the road.

My New Zealand life wasn't all new. It was still my life. Sometimes I still wondered who I was and what I was doing, what I was hoping to find so far away from home. But then, after a weekend road trip away from my small town, I was surprised to pull back into Gisborne and feel relieved that I was home.

Could it be that I was capable of making a home in a foreign place? A place where I didn't have a husband or a daughter?

I know it will take a while before everything I've learned and discovered gels and my memories knit together. But I also know that travel has given me some things I desperately needed: a renewed belief in my abilities and a new sense of self.

When I was 23, I went to Mexico for three weeks. I grew up in Philadelphia and while I had friends who went to Cancun or Puerto Vallarta on vacation, my childhood travels consisted of trips to the Jersey shore. Mexico sounded so much more exciting than a weekend in New Jersey! So finally, after I graduated from college, I seized an opportunity to go.

Because we didn't have a lot of money, Cybele, my travel buddy, and I had to travel cheap. We flew to San Antonio, Texas and took a bus over the border into Mexico. We stayed on the bus until it took us to Mexico City.

Cybele and I didn't speak Spanish and we were totally caught off guard and confused in Mexico's biggest city. I was so naive! I had thought the people of Mexico would speak English because their country was attached to the United States! I quickly realized that Mexico City didn't revolve around me or Cybele or our English. We needed to pick up some Spanish. Fast.

We tried our best and butchered just about every word we said. For a week we pronounced hola with a hard American "h." We used hand gestures and drew pictures on paper. The Mexicans we met didn't roll their eyes. Instead, they treated us with a tremendous amount of graciousness.

I remember a hurried, elegant businessman that walked us 20 minutes out of his way to make sure we found his city's famous Museum of Anthropology.

I remember another man in a shoe store that ignored his other customers to take down some pottery from a shelf over the register and explain that it was very old and passed to him from his grandmother.

I remember a host of kind women working in bakeries, coffee shops and fruterias who had the patience to teach us about Mexican food and culture.

More than anything else, my first trip to a foreign country taught me about grace. To this day, when I meet someone who is new to my country, someone who is a foreigner in my land, I am inspired. I want to talk to them, smile at them, welcome them, and offer them the same good grace, courtesy, curiosity and patience that I received when I was in Mexico City.