The farther you get from home, the closer you get to a threesome

Vhavenda people have a saying that goes: Wa sa tshimbila u do mala khaladzi, which means if you don’t travel, you’ll end up marrying your sibling.

The same can be said about life experiences; one needs to travel to see what other people do, and also experience something different from what one’s accustomed to – even Neale Donald Walsch says life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

Sometimes we think we know our potential and habits, until we get an opportunity to travel far from home and everyone who knows us, such as I had recently with an opportunity to travel to Mauritius.

Those who call themselves introverts will perhaps find themselves displaying some extrovert qualities – because this is what travelling does; it gives you the opportunity to really be free without the fear of being judged by those who raised you or know you in a certain way.

Though it does not fix problems, travelling helps you take your mind off things for a while, giving you the opportunity to see things from a different perspective. It also helps you realise there is more to life than the many small things you often worry about.

It even helps you appreciate the little things, too; I found myself sitting on the beach, feeling the cold breeze on my face, and it made me reflect on only about the good things about my life. It’s hard to sit on the beach in Mauritius, or anywhere, and worry.

Travellers also let their guard down and often just let things be, become more adventurous and go with the flow – even sexually – and various studies have suggested this is true.

Studies such as this one have established that foreign experiences abroad increase so-called moral relativism in people – the belief that morality is relative, rather than absolute. As individuals are exposed to diverse cultures, their “moral compass” may lose some of its precision.

Surveys from the USTA say that four out of 10 people feel more romantic while travelling, while almost one-third of participants have admitted to having more sex on holiday, and often not with the people they normally do.

I even witnessed this first-hand in Mauritius.

One night late at our hotel last month, a fellow South African journalist, a French journalist and I were sitting next to the pool talking about the busy day we’d just had, among other things.

Before we knew it, the French journalist had joined a couple who were sitting on the other side of the pool, talking to them, leaving us wondering why she would just leave us.

If only she knew what she was in for.

Later in our hotel room, the French journalist, upset, told us how the couple she was with had spontaneously invited her for a threesome in their hotel room – and it was the woman who had done all the talking and proposing.

The journalist said the woman had flattered her repeatedly, telling her she was “beautiful” and “fresh” and would make a perfect threesome partner.

She turned them down, and was quite taken aback by it all.

While this was happening, the other journalist and I were being treated to a very loud and proud love-making session in one of the other hotel rooms close to the pool.