Travel can have a transformative power; that is, the possibility of generating deep change and impact on individuals’ self while on vacation. Transformative experiences could impact travellers at different levels and influence their understanding and interpretation of reality. Moving on from theoretical concepts, such as transformative learning, free choice learning and experiential learning together with adoption of an innovative mobile-enhanced data collection methodology in the field, this study investigates the Malaysian homestay tourism experience and its transformative power. It presents a preliminary framework to generate a better understanding of the anatomy of transformative travel, postulating that immersive and co-created experiences could trigger transformative learning processes in travellers, thereby impacting on their knowledge, skills and attitude towards generating a differential understanding and possible interpretation of the reality.