Emotion-Driven Travel to Italy and India: 2 Intimate Stories on Loss, Love, and Healing Experiences

Originally published on April 18, 2026 | Last updated on April 18, 2026

These two candid experiences of emotion-driven travel to Italy and India unfold through deeply personal journeys of loss, love, and rediscovery. In these intimate stories by Jo Giese and Kristina Kasparian, PhD, travel becomes more than movement—it becomes a lifeline. From grief-stricken departures to transformative arrivals in India and Italy, and finally to Sicily’s quiet lessons in mindfulness, each journey reveals how place reshapes pain into healing, and strangers, landscapes, and memory become unexpected guides back to life.

Emotion-Driven Travel to India, An Experience That Changed One’s Life. 

Jo Giese talks about travel–and a country–changing one’s life! 

Traveling to India: A Journey to Escape Grief and Rediscover Joy

I’d been married for 17 years to a wonderful man, an incredible doctor. The last year of his life, I set up a hospital bed for him in our living room with 24-hour care. I did a story about this for This American Life on national public radio. After he died, I was keening in pain, not knowing how to deal with the grief that enveloped me. 

Out of the blue, a best friend, who had lost her partner of 37 years, invited me to go to India with her. She’d been a professor at UCLA, and UCLA Alumni Travel was hosting a trip to India. Neither of us had done group travel before, but we both needed a way to jettison our grief.
Almost immediately, the color and crazy cacophony of Delhi pulled us in, and I felt “better” than I had in a long time. 

The man who organized our group was also hosting another trip to a different part of India. When I returned home, I consulted with a friend and told her I was thinking about returning, but I was nervous. What if this second trip wasn’t as good as the first? Maybe I should just savor the memories from the first? My friend, Annie, carefully listened to me, and then she said, “You should return, and I’m going with you!”

Unexpected Encounters and Love Rekindled Through Travel in India

In southern India, in Kerala, Annie got stomach cramps, and a doctor was called. The doctor, who visited her bedside in our shared room, was gorgeously handsome. After he visited Annie, he stayed, and we talked and talked.

Since the group happened to be staying in Kerala for a few days, I had time for him to return. One morning, he came for breakfast, and I asked if he was up for visiting me in Los Angeles. He was. And that’s when he also sent me an email and said if he came to LA, he’d have to bring his concubine.

His invitation was cancelled, and I never communicated with the scumbag again.

Three years later, I was introduced to the man who would be my husband, and on our first date, I wore a saffron skirt, a color that’s a signature color in India. After this man learned how much I loved India, the first week we knew each other, he booked us to India on New Year’s Eve.

In Varnarsi alongside the Ganges, on my January birthday, he proposed. We married on a mountaintop in Malibu a few months later, and we exchanged garlands of marigolds and gave them to all our guests, exactly like the garlands we’d been given in India.

Jo Giese is an award-winning radio journalist, author, teacher, community activist, and global traveler

What Do Emotion-Driven Travel Experiences Mean for a Couple?

Candid story by Kristina Kasparian, PhD

I’ve always been the type to book my trips based on emotional cravings. Where I want to go next depends on what I long to feel. As a person who has lived with anxiety and a chronic illness since her teens, the emotion I’m chasing is often confidence; I book solo trips that will challenge my comfort zone and trigger a subtle transformation within. As a writer and photographer, the emotion I chase is awe.

As someone who has grown up between cultures and on the faultline between able and unable, I let my heart lead me to destinations where I learn something more about identity and belonging. As much as travel is a window onto others, it’s a window onto ourselves. Emotion-driven travel grounds me in what matters in this wild, fast-paced, lonely life we’re all living.

Transformative Trip to Rekindle Marriage Through Emotion-Driven Travel

Though my most transformative trips have been solo trips, I recently traveled to Sicily with my husband, Ethan. After a series of marriage-altering crises with pregnancy losses and surrogacy, I was craving to reconnect with him and the way we used to be when we fell in love 25 years ago. We were exhausted and strained from the weight of years of grief, illness, and infertility.

As strong and resilient as our loved ones thought we were, we were struggling to be mindful and connected. After our son was delivered stillborn by our first surrogate and our second surrogate had a miscarriage, we were basically just in survival mode and feeling like passing ships. We let our craving for connection lead us to Sicily, a part of Italy we hadn’t yet explored.

A Travel to Italy to Reconnect With 20 Years of Shared Memories

Ethan and I have a long history with Italy. When we met in our early 20s, we spontaneously decided to spend our summers studying Italian in Florence, where it became clear to us that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. Our love story then unfolded in Canada and Italy, where I lived on my own during my master’s and my PhD. 

After our recurring losses and all the financial strain caused by surrogacy, we were hoping to reconnect with the parts of ourselves and each other that are still the same. We hoped to replenish a bit of our resolve by refueling on sunshine, sea, and nature. So, we sought solace in the seaside town of Cefalù and explored the northern Sicilian coast and the simple life on the Aeolian Islands.

Traveling to Sicily to Focus on Being Mindful Observers

Though travel doesn’t heal all, it allowed us a reprieve from the events in our life that rattled our hearts. It wasn’t a miraculous reset, but it was a deep breath. Sicily allowed us to focus on being mindful observers, grounding our senses, and opening our hearts back up to inspiration.

Maybe, we thought, we can find solace in the fact that we’ve survived traumatic experiences together and that all that truly matters is loving well, eating well, and keeping our hearts soft and kind. Sicily grounded us in simple pleasures again and helped us tap into the lightness we haven’t lost.

Final Note: Emotion-Driven Travel to Italy and India

As I continue reporting on emotion-driven travel, what stands out most is how often people don’t set out with an itinerary, but with a feeling they can’t ignore—grief, curiosity, longing, or even quiet hope.

Emotion-driven travel isn’t about ticking destinations off a list—it’s about following something quieter and more personal: a feeling that refuses to be ignored. Whether it’s grief pulling you toward distance, curiosity pushing you into the unknown, or joy asking to be extended, these journeys often begin in the heart before they ever reach a map.

For many travelers, including those who’ve found healing in India or reconnection in Italy, the experience unfolds unpredictably—sometimes soothing, sometimes confronting, but rarely shallow. The most lasting moments aren’t planned; they arrive. And once you’ve traveled this way, planning trips around emotion changes everything.

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