10 Travel Moments That Teach Us Every Journey Is Better When We Pack a Little Kindness

• I’VE NOTICED ONE THING: People who have traveled a lot judge less. Not because they’ve become kinder, but because they’ve seen too many versions of “normal.” In one country, it’s normal to eat with your hands. In another — to stay quiet at the table. In a third, it’s normal to kiss in a cheek with new people. When you’ve seen 30 versions of “right,” you stop believing that yours is the only one. Travel doesn’t just teach you geography. It teaches you tolerance.

• I was on a crowded flight, struggling to breastfeed my baby. Suddenly the man beside me turned away in disgust. “Can’t you do that on the bathroom? People don’t need to see that!” My face burned. But then the whole row went quiet when his son looked up from his tablet and went, “Dad, did Mom have to hide to feed me when I was a baby? Did I eat in the bathroom? Did you eat in the bathroom when you were a baby?” The man opened his mouth, said nothing. Everyone around us was staring. He cleared his throat. “No. I... I don’t know.” The boy went back to his tablet. The man coughed, put on his headphones and turned away. I wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or embarrassed. A few minutes later, a woman across the aisle leaned toward me. “Would you like to switch seats? You look like you could use a little more room.” I thanked her, and we switched. For the rest of the flight, my daughter finally settled down. Before we landed, the woman looked at me. “You’re doing a great job.” That simple sentence nearly made me cry. Traveling can be stressful. Flights are crowded, babies cry, people get tired, and everyone just wants to get to their destination. But being considerate doesn’t require much. And a little kindness can make a long journey feel completely different.

• A little kindness goes a long way. I was so nervous to fly with our infant, for loooong flights to Hawai’i. On our two flights back, we had a few people go out of their way to tell us we were doing great, and one lady stopped us when we left and said “who was the best baby on the plane? You were!” Those people likely won’t remember it, but it made a big impact on this travel-anxious mama’s day. I love when we travel the same way with kind travelers

• Kindness found me on a crowded bus in Florence, just after I realized I had boarded the wrong one. I had been confidently following my map for twenty minutes before noticing that I was getting farther away from my hotel instead of closer to it. I tried not to panic, mostly because I had no idea how to ask for help in Italian and was already sweating through my “effortlessly stylish traveler” outfit. The older woman sitting beside me noticed me staring at my phone with what must have been a deeply concerning expression. “Lost?” she asked in English. “A little,” I said. “Unless Florence has suddenly moved my hotel.” She laughed, looked at my map, and explained where I needed to get off. Then, instead of simply pointing me in the right direction, she got off at the same stop and walked me to the correct bus. When I thanked her, she waved it away. “Tourists are always getting lost,” she said. “It is practically tradition.” I spent the rest of the trip wondering why I had been so nervous about asking for help when people were clearly had compassion. A few minutes of a stranger’s time had turned a travel disaster into one of my favorite memories. That’s the thing about being far from home: empathy can make a strange place feel a little more familiar.

• I had a dear friend and mentor at work who would always coordinate his travel with mine when we traveled for work together, because he knew how much it stressed me out to drive in new places. This was over the course of years. Even if he didn’t stay in the same hotel as me, he’d pick me up and drop me off curbside. That kind of consideration was so lacking in my marriage. It still makes me tear up to think about this act of kindness.

• Recently on a train from Casablanca to Fes, a woman offered me fruit. At first, I shook my hand thinking she was trying to sell me something, but then realized she simply wanted everyone around her to enjoy the juicy bananas and peaches she brought for her children. This was a small act but made my day and gave me hope in humanity.

• My flight from Chicago to Denver was delayed for nearly four hours. By midnight, everyone at the gate was tired, cranky, and ready to get home. A young mom sitting nearby was struggling to manage a stroller, two carry-ons, and an increasingly restless toddler. When the little boy started crying, she tried rocking him, then digging through her bag for a toy. Nothing seemed to work. The older woman beside her noticed first. She leaned over and asked if she could hold one of the bags while the mom searched for what she needed. A few minutes later, the toddler wandered toward a college student sitting on the floor near an outlet. Instead of shooing him away, the student pulled a sheet of paper from his notebook and started folding it into a paper airplane. The little boy immediately stopped crying. His mom laughed for the first time all night. When our flight was finally called, the woman with the bags helped her gather her things. The student handed the toddler his paper airplane, and we all made our way toward the gate. Kindness didn’t fix the delay or make the airport any less crowded. But it changed one difficult night for a stranger. And watching it happen was a reminder that empathy often begins with something simple: noticing when someone could use a hand.

• I was stuck at the airport after my flight was canceled when a woman nearby started arguing with the gate agent. “You don’t understand! I have to get home tonight!” People sighed. A man behind her muttered, “Here we go.” All around other passengers were rolling their eyes. As though she could feel their hostility, the women suddenly turned around, eyes red. “My mom is in the hospital. They don’t think she’ll make it. I have to see her.” That shut everyone up. Then the man who had complained stepped forward. “Where are you trying to get to?” When she told him, he pulled out his phone and started looking for rental cars. Another passenger offered to split the cost of a ride. Within minutes, three strangers (including me) were trying to get her home. Later, while we waited, she told me she’d spent the past year caring for her mother. Most of her friends had slowly stopped calling, and the loneliness had become something she barely noticed anymore—until moments like this. An hour later, the man she’d argued with came back from the rental counter holding up a set of keys. “I found one,” he said. She burst into tears. He shrugged awkwardly. “I guess I could’ve shown a little more empathy before opening my mouth.” He drove her to the hospital himself. She made it on time.

• Japan. My husband and I, brother in law and wife were travelling together. We’d booked a soccer game (which wasn’t easy to do from overseas) and arrived at the stadium it was meant to be at about 45 mins early and nothing was there, no one around. No taxis, nothing, no signs. We wandered around confused for a few minutes, devastated and googling as we tried to figure out what had happened. A couple minutes later a man ran over from like 600m away and asked us if we were here for the game. When we said yes he said he’d made the same mistake and when he saw us there (all four of us), he’d ran and told his wife to make space in the car and that they’d take us with them — before he’d even spoken to us! My partner and I had travelled in Japan before so we were pretty trusting and ultimately figured 4 of us could take one guy (haha) and got back to his car to his wife TAKING THEIR BABY SEAT out of the car and putting it into the boot. The 4 of us squeezed into the back seat and she put the baby on her lap and we spent the 30 min drive just chatting — turns out he was a neurosurgeon, and his kid was friends with one of the players kids, so he goes to the games often. They dropped us off and wouldn’t accept any payment or gifts or anything, just told us to have a great time and absolutely saved the day. We had an absolute blast and I’ve never forgotten their kindness.

Travel may take us far from home, but it also has a way of bringing people closer together. A small act of empathy can make even the most frustrating journey feel a little less overwhelming, especially when loneliness starts creeping in somewhere between destinations. And really, isn’t that part of the adventure?