Why We Travel

8 years ago, I had my first taste of what it feels like to live abroad in a foreign country. It was both wonderful and terrifying — and I was hooked.

In the time since, I’ve traveled solo, as a couple and with friends. Some trips are short weekend getaways, while others are month-long adventures. Each kind of travel has its own uniqueness, but nothing is quite as powerful as getting rid of all your possessions, packing your few remaining belongings into one bag and moving across the world on a one-way ticket.

Flashback to one year ago: Yokohama, Japan.

I remember everything about my first day in Japan — stepping out from the airport and feeling like I had just stepped into an entirely different universe. I had no cell phone, which means that I had no map, no translator and no connection to the social world. How did we survive before technology? It was frightening and thrilling at the same time.

There were a lot of stares that first day. I wasn’t in a particularly touristy area of town and I felt like a giant, blonde blob in a sea of busy Japanese locals.

I remember repeating the only three words of Japanese that I knew (konnichwa-sumimasen-arigatou • hello-excuse me-thank you), all at once and in random order — sometimes with a word of Spanish thrown in. “Gracias!..sumimasen?..oh hell, thank you!”

I remember the determination to finish my entire first meal using only chopsticks, even after the waiter quickly brought me a fork, nodding at me with a knowing smile.

I remember the exciting, powerful feeling of being lost in another world, exploring the tiny streets filled with small shops and food stalls…followed quickly by the all-consuming panic once I realized the sun had gone down and I couldn’t read a single street sign.

I’m sorry, turn where??!

This is the reason why we travel. To be taken out of our comfort zone, to be taken out of the 9-5: work, eat, sleep, repeat. Traveling isn’t always amazing and it isn’t always terrible either — but it is always an experience away from the norm. It is always change, it is always moving and it causes you to think and feel in a different way.
This is why we travel: for the extraordinary. 

Why do you love to travel?