W hen I first began to travel it was to ‘get away from it all’ and relieve stress. I lived for the feeling I’d have when I’d leave work knowing I wouldn’t be back the following Monday. I’d be getting on a plane for the next adventure, that rush of wind as I pushed opened the office doors taking my stress with it or that first breath of stale city air smelling fresher than ever as I stepped onto the bus platform.

That was me. For years. Travel carried me forward and helped me to keep trucking on at the job. Work to travel and travel to work. It did the trick for a while but this kind of pattern was unsustainable because I used travel to escape. It wasn’t just a time to decompress. There were things that I had to deal with and 1 or 2 weeks in another country doesn’t fix anything.

After I quit my job I started traveling often. I was never home for more than 6 weeks at a time – stopping in to see family and attend weddings. I was nomadic, living in different cities a few months at a time sometimes for work, mostly just because I could. I loved it and I started to understand why travel – slow travel – has become a big part of me. I’ve narrowed it down to the following and – what! – the words happen to be from some of my favorite Disney movies.

1. A whole new world. Traveling has opened me up to trying new things and seeing things with hope and possibility. Before traveling my world was pretty small and my experiences were effectively life in a bubble. My perspective of life was based on how situations affected me instead of how I affected situations. There’s an important nuance of the order of perspectives. Traveling makes you see how big the world really is and how small you are in comparison, yet, not so small that you’re unable to make a positive impact on it. Traveling isn’t just a stress-reliever or a moment to escape. It’s an opportunity to allow new experiences to shift your perspective and be all the better for it.
2. The bare necessities. Living out of a suitcase for the better part of 3 years really helped me realize what was necessary with the penultimate moment of living out of a camper-van for six weeks with one backpack, my camera gear and a yoga mat. Even food was just for energy to get my ass up the mountain and water to keep me alive. Life was simple this way and it freed me from thinking about what I didn’t have or what I thought I needed. And, of course, it saved me a lot of money which gave me more opportunities to travel. I still work on this every day and the two things I haven’t been able to curb are books and hot beverages – I’m always on the hunt for a perfect cuppa.
3. Try everything. One of the biggest things that traveling has done for me is expanding and stretching my comfort zone. I’ve done things I never thought I’d do and I’ve put things on my bucket list I never thought would be there. But I guess the biggest thing about ‘try anything’ is that I’ve discovered that I’m able to push myself a little further, be less focused on making mistakes and more focused on learning from them. I also know what my boundaries are. Trying everything doesn’t mean I say yes to everything but it does mean that I know who I am and what I need to do to push myself a little further each time.

At the risk of using something that is all over the internet and Instagram, J.R.R Tolkien sure knew what he was talking about. He was a philosopher in his own right. I loved this quote when I first read it. I really wanted to believe that I wasn’t lost. But who was I kidding? When I first started this journey I was lost. I didn’t know what I wanted – I only knew what I didn’t want.

And years later I return to this quote and it speaks to me differently. I acknowledge and am proud of my wandering feet. I’ve learned so much about myself and I feel part of something much bigger than myself. I’ve always been fascinated with the human brain and behaviors; traveling opened my eyes to see that we come from different places but at the very core of a person, we’re trying to navigate our own way. We may try different methods but our motivators, drive, and reasons are not so different.

I wander with intention and I hope and plan to live every day with the same intention. It doesn’t matter if I’m home, out in the mountains or exploring a new city, I bring the same wandering spirit and the same wondering to see things in new ways.