Why Travel?

Everybody who travels does so for their own reasons. Somebody does it just for fun, or it could be a sweet once-in-a-lifetime honeymoon. Others travel as a means to escape reality, looking for a paradise on earth. Someone longs for something new only to make it old again. And I’d like to share one of my reasons to travel here.

To me, one of the absolutely fascinating things that travel could offer is this. You get to meet all these people from all across the world that you never ever would’ve had a chance to bump into if you hadn’t started traveling in the first place.

And while those people are already stunningly beautiful and unique by just who they are, what makes them even more appealing to me is their stories. Every one of them is writing their own story with different backgrounds and characters as they go on with their lives. And it literally makes my heart pound thinking my path somehow miraculously happened to align with theirs at one point at the edge of an infinite universe.

Up to the point where I started my very first trip, I presumably believed everyone in the world had been leading more or less the same life as me. You know, all these things that are given to me from the beginning of my life, so I took for granted, such as not very privileged but still very loving and caring family backgrounds, opportunities for getting a good education and just stuff you get to experience daily just because you’re born into this family and this country. How naive and spoiled was I?

​While there were a ton of fun and heartwarming stories on the road, so were sad and tragic ones such as abusive parents and family members not getting along that well and even the close ones passing away very early. It was all these stories that help me put things into perspective, making me realize how blessed I’ve been from the very beginning of this journey. And what I’ve taken for granted all these years were not actually given to everyone. It definitely helped me shape myself into more of an understanding and appreciative person from an arrogant and selfish human being that I was in the past. So to speak, it was through every single travel that I became a “better human being.”

And I’m forever grateful for this precious lesson that everyone along the way and traveling taught me.