I've only been on one journey I'd call life-changing.
When I was 7 years old my mother bundled up my brother and I in the blankets we each were sleeping under. It was some time in the middle of the night. We all got into the back of a large truck and headed to the waterfront where we were quickly lead into the bowels of a cargo ship just before it set off. Several months and a bunch of south pacific islands later we were accepted into Australia as political refugees.
The reason for our hasty departure was because at that time my father was leading a resistance cell against a brutal military dictatorship (this was in South America). His cell's specialty was smuggling weapons in from neighboring countries to arm the resistance. We found out that our cell had been compromised and soldiers were on their way to our house so our cell used their smuggling network to get us out. We later found out that they missed us by about 40 minutes. Some didn't fare so well and many of our friends were killed the next day.
I still have that blanket.