Paper short abstract:

Through the cases of three travellers in India, we shall see how travel, as a transitional experience, offers the possibility to retell a life history. The traveling experience thus acts as a prism through which one revisits a personal history.

Paper long abstract:

Touristic experiences often mark a breach in daily life affecting travellers in various ways according to the nature of their traveling projects. Through the cases of three travellers in India, we shall see how travel, as a transitional experience, offers them the possibility to retell their life history. The traveling experience thus acts as a prism through which they revisit their personal history in a way that is coherent with what they had been through during their voyage. What they state as significant events in their life can be interpreted as echoing their strategies of travel.

Shanti, a Canadian woman whom I met in Rishikesh - a holy town boarding the Ganges - recalls her individual history interpreting all her life as a path guided by her guru, even though she did not know of him at that time. Sophie, a French lady whom I met in Calcutta, devotes an important part of her life to an organization assisting children living on the street. Her life before this encounter is perceived as a regrettable waste of time. Simon, a German citizen spending half of the year in Goa, sun tanning on the beaches of the Arabian sea, recalls his encounter with an Indian palm leaf reader. This meeting is remembered as a meaningful event, helping him to accept his nomadic life style.

Through these travellers' accounts, we can observe three different commemorative processes : 1) an explicative memory to make sense in hindsight of a spiritual travel experience; 2) a transforming memory to make sense of a humanitarian travel experience ; and 3) a justifying memory to make sense of a libertarian life style. These three processes attest to the outstanding nature of the traveling experience and the necessity to inscribe it a posteriori in a consistent life story.