Travel far and outside of comfort zone changes person, any person, for good. Prophet Mohammed is quoted roughly saying: "Don't tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you have travelled".

There are non-trivial amount of people who discovered this on their own, got properly addicted and basically live in their western jobs to be able to afford as much travel ie in remote parts of south east Asia as possible. Some skipped that western job part altogether. I recently spent few weeks in remote parts of northern Sulawesi and the only westerners I kept meeting were of this bunch, with exactly same travel bug.

The problem is as you describe - you can't explain all this and much more to folks who stayed home or some variant of that. You can show photos and videos, tell stories but what that experience changed within you, thats your journey only.

Personally, this is by far the best way to spend money (plus gym membership).