Face Fears Through Travel

Imagine it—you’re standing on a precipice, stepping onto a boarding ramp, or diving into depths unknown. How do you feel? Do any of those circumstances conjure a lump in your throat or butterflies in your stomach?

When we feel fear, we tend to hold back, to confine ourselves to the safety of the familiar. But the very act of traveling possesses a unique power to push us beyond our limits and help us confront our deepest fears head-on. If you’re willing to tiptoe outside of your comfort zone, you might meet a more fearless version of yourself like I did.

Confronting Three Common Travel Fears

Fear of Flying

Flying is one of the most common fears faced by adults, second only to the fear of public speaking. I was twenty-five before I flew for the first time, and despite my knowledge of the safety statistics, I was scared.

Three things helped me to deal with this fear. One was taking a proactive approach. First, I learned that mentally rehearsing what I would do in the event of a plane crash could help me act decisively instead of panicking, ultimately increasing the chance of survival. When I fly, I count the number of seats between mine and the exit and actually read and think about the safety card in the seat pocket.

Second, I focused on the beauty that I could only experience from a plane—cities and farms like a patchwork quilt and captivating clouds, sunsets, and sunrises. Finally, when I took eight separate flights in a span of three months, I found myself feeling at home both in the air and at the airport.

Fear of Water

Some people face the fear of drowning. Others are afraid of boats. Even since I was a ten-year-old learning to water ski, slimy somethings swimming around my legs, I’ve been afraid of being eaten by whatever large animals might be lurking in the unseen depths. 

There’s actually a name for this fear—Megalohydrothalassophobia, the fear of underwater creatures. When the chance to swim with humpback whales tempted me into open water, knowledge was again key. I learned that I was more likely to be struck by lightning on the beach than to be killed by a shark. I pursued an open-water scuba certification. In the process I learned that fish usually perceive divers as “neutral presences.” In other words, they would ignore me as if I were just another part of their environment. 

On my first “official” dive following my three-day training, it happened that my air reserves perilously depleted at a depth of 40 feet. I signaled to my instructor, and we seamlessly fell into the rescue diving procedure he’d taught me. We grasped the shoulder straps of each other’s buoyancy compensators. Then,  he provided me his “octopus” or secondary regulator. I felt impressed by the effectiveness of my training and the value of a competent dive buddy. We both knew what to do, and the procedure was a textbook example. Instead of inducing fear, the incident gave me confidence in the face of adversity.

Fear of Public Transportation

My perception of the subway system was shaped by popular culture. Such a labyrinthine subterranean ecosystem must be ridden with rats and criminals and nearly impossible to navigate, right? After a lot of research and a reassuring conversation with a local, I hopped on one of these fast-moving trains. Just like flying, I found it to be fun!

Benefits of Facing Your Fears

On the surface, the benefits of facing travel-related fears may seem limited to the duration of your vacation. If you overcome your fear of flying, you can go to more places or get there with less stress. If you overcome scuba-related fears, you can have a cool experience and get some great pictures for Instagram. Overcoming a fear of using public transportation saves you money on Uber and Lyft.

But facing fears head-on also helps put everyday anxieties in perspective. Compared with a heart-pounding confrontation with a long-held horror, smaller stresses often seem more manageable. Your confidence and resilience grows. And, you experience new challenges, richer life experiences, and deeper connections. Consider one more example that really drove this lesson home.

Facing Fears That Affect Your Life

When I was 15, I traveled with my parents to the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. After touring the museum, we boarded a “car” that looked like an oversized clothes dryer drum to ride to the top of the Arch. After the doors closed and we started to move, my mom’s breath came quickly and she clutched my dad’s arm, nearly overcome with panic. She did not realize she had a fear of enclosed spaces.

When we stepped off the tram onto the Observation Deck, we found ourselves 630 feet in the air, 63 stories high. We looked out through tiny windows, so high up that you can see for 30 miles on a clear day. I could feel the slight swaying of the arch in the wind, and panic began growing in my gut, too.

Fast forward more than a decade. I hadn’t given much thought to that moment at the top of the Arch or whether I had an overarching fear of heights. If I didn’t like rock climbing or getting too close to edge of a precipice during hikes, that was just good sense. If I didn’t like some amusement park rides, it didn’t matter, because I did like others.

Then it happened. I was on a roof as a construction volunteer, and I was stuck like a cartoon cat up a tree. I couldn’t move and wanted to get down. But, , I just couldn’t swing my leg out over open space to mount the ladder.

I was terrified of heights.

A friend talked me down, and another taught me how to lean into my fall protection harness to achieve “active restraint.” The gentle pressure of the harness told my brain that I couldn’t fall off the roof. I kept working, but I was still fearful.

Facing Fears Through Travel Experiences

For a long time, I categorized this experience with the ones above—fears I had met and overcome, experiences that increased my self-confidence and made me feel accomplished. But the Muse of Travel wasn’t done with me yet.

On a shady summer day, I stepped into a harness similar to the one I used in construction. The major difference was that the lanyard was attached to the front instead of the back. I had built trust in the equipment while working and indoor rock climbing.  So I  was excited as I stepped onto the zipline platform for the first time.

An aerial guide securely fastened my lanyard to the trolley that would run along the zipline.  He explained that I should simply sit into my harness and pick my feet up off the ground. I should not jump or launch myself from the platform, which was quite fine with me. He counted down from three, and I interrupted my contact with the ground. Slowly at first, but quickly gaining speed, I barreled across 550 feet of stainless steel cable towards another platform in the tree line.

Just as I braced myself for impact with the wooden platform, the breaking system kicked in and another guide helped me stand. I emerged exhilarated! When my companions made it to the platform, we retraced our steps to experience the zipline again.

After docking for a second time, I decided to tackle the part of the Nantahala Outdoor Center’s Zip Lin Adventure Park that I wasn’t looking forward to—a high ropes course with obstacles located 20 and 40 feet above the ground.

Expanding the Experience as Fear Melts Away

Using the same harness, a guide hooked me in and explained how to navigate the trolley around the connections between obstacles. I stepped out onto the first—a series of hanging logs that swayed as I walked across them. Arriving at the first platform, I rejoiced that I’d been able to make it that far. But as I shimmied across spider-webs of rope, hopped from board to board on swinging bridges that would have felt at home in a Wile E. Coyote cartoon, and sat into my harness purposely making chunks of wood swing and sway so I could stretch to the next one, the last vestiges of my fear of heights melted away.

I finished the lower level of the course and moved on to the higher. I scaled a climbing wall—at least as high as my untrained arms would take me. Then, I auto-belayed like a leaf floating to the ground. I jogged up the hill to the head of the zipline until our two-hour excursion came to an end.

Guzzling a Gatorade, I said to my husband, “Our fall protection training should have included this.” I knew that I’d never recoil from a ladder or a roof again.

As I settled into sleep that night, exhausted from the day’s exertions, I smiled, happy in the knowledge that the transformative power of travel had once again made me a better version of myself. 

 

 

Click Here for Discounted Accommodations to Experience the Gateway Arch.