GLOBETROTTERS WRITING PROMPT

Being Grateful — The Finale

A variety of reflections on people we’ve met, experiences we made, and situations that made us grateful for what we have

Gratitude isn’t just a behavior we can and should show toward others, it can be a mindset. It can be a life-changing feature when applying it in our daily lives. Those who are grateful for the simple things in life, quickly become happier too.

We’ve asked you to share your travel memories revolving around the topic of gratitude and you did come up with a whole collection of stories. It was a joy to read through those articles of which some made me cry happy tears and others made me smile from within.

We received a total of 27 stories plus 7 editor submissions. As always, the editors' articles do not count in our selection process.

These are our favorites.

Jillian Amatt - Artistic Voyages

I feel as though expressing gratitude is still not a normal practice for most people. As humans, we spend an awful lot of time focusing on the negative experiences of life, and generally not enough time on the positives. While I tend to seek out happy and uplifting stories on Medium, I too get sucked down the rabbit hole of doom and gloom occasionally.

However, this month of reading your stories about being grateful for travel has certainly uplifted me and it has been a real privilege to read them all. Each story had threads of a connection, and they all reminded me of why I am also grateful for my traveling life.

As usual, trying to choose a favorite has not been easy.

A fairly early entry by Marianne O My First Experience Living In the US Was the Best really caught my attention as she talks about how eye-opening it was to be surrounded by kids of many cultures at a summer camp when she was 12. It reminded me that as children, we are so moldable and adaptable and that by having these sorts of experiences at such a young age, we are taught that there are more similarities than there are differences between us all.

I love reading articles by TRAVEL STORIES BY GABE because his gratitude for travel shines through in all of them. But this specific post really highlights why he is grateful. Gabe has found his way out of poverty in Brazil and is now traveling the world. He has had some amazing experiences and is currently living in Ireland. Though his time there has been fraught with difficulties, he is still grateful for it all.

Sandy Maximus writes about traveling on ships around the world as a child in her post Gratitude For Travel Starts At Home. Her dad worked on the boats and he made an effort to bring the family along whenever he could. I could see how the love of travel was instilled in her at a young age, and having the privilege to travel in my youth, I certainly could relate to her experience. Her father was the first in his family to travel outside of India and because he passed it down to her, she is able to pass it on to her own children.

I have been able to pass down the gift of travel to my children, just as my dad did for me. The same education, the same passion, and the same gratitude.

These three stories really struck a chord with me, as did many others, but it was an absolute privilege to read Dan Carlson | Meandering Naturists’s story about being grateful for us editors at Globetrotters, plus his encouraging community, and I would be crazy to not choose it as a favorite. Thank you so much Dan, it’s so nice to be appreciated, and reading this reminds me why it is such a privilege to edit for this great publication.

Showing gratitude for fellow humans is certainly a great practice and you inspired me to write my own post about being grateful for the people I meet along my travels. So thanks for that!

As usual, the stories were amazing for this month's challenge. Thank you to all who participated! I am grateful to all of you for inspiring and uplifting me:)

Adrienne Beaumont

I have to tell you that this is my least favourite part of being an editor of Globetrotters: judging the stories that have been submitted for the monthly challenge. The only thing that makes it bearable is that the other editors are judges too. They don’t seem to struggle with deciding which stories they liked more.

Please bear with me while I reread the entries.

For originality and perhaps a little flattery, my award goes to none other than Dan Carlson | Meandering Naturists. He expresses his thanks to all of us editors here at Globetrotters as well as thanking many other writers who have helped or inspired him to write.

For inspiration, I simply cannot choose between Janin Lyndovsky’s Grateful for the Privilege of Travel, Nella DiCarlo’s My Gratitude for Travel — A Variety of Reflections, Sandy Maximus’ Gratitude for Travel Starts at Home, and Kathryn Lee’s Celebrating the Gift of Travel all of which inspired me to write about my travel as a child which I had completely forgotten about! So a big thank you to those writers!

And the one I will remember forever, now this is a big claim considering I couldn’t even remember I travelled as a child is Vanessa Brown’s story.

Congratulations to those six writers whose stories touched me in some way.

My applause goes to the twenty-one writers I haven’t mentioned, some of whom are new writers, who’ve written stories about gratitude for events they’ve experienced while travelling or thanks to the wonderful people they’ve met. It was a topic I felt took a lot of soul-searching to write, so well done!

JoAnn Ryan

This month, your gratitude stories have brought so much great aura to all of us at Globetrotters. I’m a big believer in spreading around good karma and appreciating the awesome people and the world around us.

Creating a circular system of thankfulness is essential in this often evil world. We have to do what we can to combat it by sharing the good things that happen as well.

As such, I loved all your stories! Each and every one: Stephanie, Jeanine, Dan, Marianne, Aarti, Martin, Brett, Osan, AlibsWrites, Dr. Preeti Singh, Sandy, Kathryn, Jit Yih, Gerad, TRAVEL STORIES BY GABE, Sajjad, Julie, Vanessa, Janin, Ronald, Nella and Robert. Thank you so much!

A special shout-out to Dan Carlson | Meandering Naturists for his beautiful post of gratitude for Globetrotters and us editors. Being editors isn’t as easy of a job as it might appear, especially on a rapidly growing publication. We constantly talk about writers, readers and creating a pub that we are all proud of and want to read. Sometimes it’s a bit of a labor of love… but it’s one we do all love. And sometimes we have to make tough decisions and judgement calls. In the end, it’s all well worth it when people express their love and gratitude. Thank you Dan so much for that! Love ya! 🥰

Additionally, a great big shout-out to my fellow editors, who I’m thankful every day to be working with. They are smart, talented and fun people… and great writers: Anne, Adrienne and Jillian.

Ultimately though, it was this story by Keith Kelley that truly stole my heart. It was so beautiful and heartfelt. His love and care of his wife when she fell ill was simply beyond words… almost 😉:

Also, wanted to give a great big shout-out to Trista Signe Ainsworth and Lorena, aka Sharing Randomly from Thank You Notes. Want to express more gratitude? Give this pub your love and awesome stories!

Anne Bonfert

I had been busy this month and just caught up on most of the prompt submissions, so these stories are still fresh in my mind but I have to say I have no idea which one to choose. There were so many good ones.

Almost all the articles submitted to the monthly challenge were excellent pieces filled with loads of personal narratives. The way we like it here at Globetrotters.

However, I still have to name my favorites, so here we go. Vanessa Brown describes how one of her worst days turned into one she’ll never forget. I felt with her and her cat as she was struggling and suffering through the day until they were finally both reunited and in their own apartment.

Janin Lyndovsky describes how basic her travels were as a child growing up in Poland but how much she cherishes them. She eventually broke out of the bubble and found a new home away from home.

If you think I travel a lot and live in a variety of places, you should read Ronald Smit’s stories about his life around the globe. He describes in this piece how grateful he is for all the chances of travel he got and for all the countries he lived in that made him more aware of what gratitude means.

Last but not least I’d like to highlight Dan Carlson’s response which took a different approach to this prompt. He took the topic of gratitude to show appreciation for people on Medium. He doesn’t just thank us editors for the work we do but also other writers in the community.

We are grateful for this post and really appreciate your kind words. You made us all smile.

Once again, we thank each and every writer who has contributed to this writing prompt. Some stories were more personal than others and some were more compelling.

If you missed the deadline and still want to share a travel-related gratitude story you can do so, the article will just not be part of the challenge. We are always open to travel posts.

I also encourage you to stay tuned for our next writing prompt for the month of December. We will announce it here on Globetrotters on the 1st.

The team of editors also has contributed to the challenge with the following articles. These posts never join the contest.

JoAnn Ryan with “Gratitude for All the Steps I’ve Taken in Life” and “Gratitude for Rain, Flowers and All of You Beautiful Writers”

Jillian Amatt - Artistic Voyages with “Full-Time Travel Has Made Me More Grateful” and “I’m Grateful For the People We Meet Along the Way”

Adrienne Beaumont with “Road Trip in Japan” and ”Gratitude for Travel”

Anne Bonfert with “Always Have an Attitude for Gratitude”

And now please give credits to all participating writers and do give a read to these awesome submissions if you haven’t checked them out yet:

Jeanine Tew with “What to Do If You Get Lost on the Way to the Madrid International Airport ✈”

Dr. Preeti Singh with “It Was FunTo Explore The Streets Of Berkeley” and “Divine Buddha And The Cultural Heritage Of A Country”

Osan Fernando with “Sending Love And Gratitude To South Korea” and “When The Weather Is Not Fine”

Dan Carlson | Meandering Naturists with “I Thank You God For Most This Amazing Train” and “Gobs of Gratitude for the Greats and Gurus of Globetrotters”

Marianne O with “My First Experience Living In the U.S. When I Was 12 Was the Best”

TRAVEL STORIES BY GABE with “Being Grateful for Being Able to Travel”

Gerad Carrier with “Travel Blessings”

Keith Kelley with “My Wife’s Life Was Saved by Miracles in Italy”

Jit Yih with “Bhutan and the Art of Being Grateful”

Kathryn Lee with “Celebrating the Gift Of Travel”

Sandy Maximus with “Gratitude for Travel Starts at Home”

AlibsWrites with “Travel is the Best Gift of All”

Brett Jenae Tomlin with “Showing Gratitude in Travel as a Woman With Anxiety”

Martin Scherer with “I Never Left My Country Until I Was 30”

Aarti Tailor with “5 Incredible Travel Experiences To Be Grateful For”

Sajjad Choudhury with “Santorini: A Memorable Birthday Trip From my Loving Wife”

Julie van Maanen with “I Moved To Paris Age 19 And My Life Turned Around”

Vanessa Brown with “Deck Chairs in my Living Room — An Immigrant Gratitude Story”

Janin Lyndovsky with “Grateful For The Privilege of Travel”

Ronald Smit with “Travel and Gratitude”

Nella DiCarlo with “My Gratitude for Travel — A Variety of Reflections”

Robert Knight with “Two Vietnamese I’m thankful to have met”

Stephanie Tolk with “Seeing the World Through Younger Eyes”

Nicholas Patton with “Grateful For This Mountainside Restaurant”