‘A treasure I carry inside me’ - Global learning during stays abroad as part of development policy education programmes. Practically oriented stays abroad in developing and threshold countries are gaining increasing significance in young adults’ personal and profession- al careers. In the context of a development policy education programme, these personal and very diverse experiences form part of what is known as global learning, currently the dominant pedagogical concept in development policy education. The article represents a qualitative assessment of the experiences gained abroad by four people and in turn, illustrates the subgoals of global learning cited in the scientific and practice-oriented literature, namely understanding the global dimension, personality development, and global skills acquisition. While all four case studies reflect a strong link between the subjects’ personal experiences while abroad and their respective educational biographies in terms of global learning aspects, the way they interpret these learning processes varies widely and depends to a great extent on the kind of support they received from their sending organisations.