A couple of years ago, I was bitten by the travel bug.

I bought one-way tickets out of my city, took solo trips, volunteered, made new friends, and visited old ones in cities I’d never been to.

Along the way, I gathered wholesome stories, snippets of songs in languages I don’t speak, and just enough words in regional languages to help me get by.

Through the people who opened their homes and lives to this nosy intruder, I was exposed to perspectives, and ways of being that changed the way I looked at Life, the Universe and Everything. 

Why did I do it? It’s not easy to articulate. Maybe for a glimpse of something different than I had known up until then? To get a sense of the vast range of possibilities of what a good life can mean? To understand different people, seeing them in their natural habitats, responding in vastly different ways to mostly similar situations? Perhaps a little bit of them all. 

Life, however, gets in the way sometimes. Jobs, responsibilities, pandemics. The usual. And I can’t always step into a new world as easily. So this is where I go instead. I find myself dropped in an unknown location, walking along new streets, looking for signs to identify where I am. As I tune in to the sights of a new place, discovering where I am becomes an adventure in itself.

Ria

P. S. Made any new friends lately? Share cool things like Just One Thing with them, and you can be sure they’ll stick around!