I accredit my parents for impressing the importance of exploration into my life from childhood. After all, it was my parents who raised my sister and I on non-beach family vacations, trips that opened us up to cultural and environmental otherness. Family trips that empowered me with a sense of autonomy so that by the time I was 19, I knew I wanted to live abroad. When I moved to Paris, my family came to visit. Mostly we went to museums and we ate, but we also rented a car and traveled South to the rocky white beaches of Nice and to the Mediterranean coastline of Caps d’Antibes. Though nearly a decade ago, I still remember the perfect marriage of savory and saltiness of the mussels and frites from a local restaurant where we dined in the streets. That trip was a fantasy, and like all fantasies, I understood and embraced its conclusion. 

For years following, travel continued to speak to me. I wanted to return to Paris —and just two years later, I did —but I also wanted to know under-the-sea creatures of Thailand and the hospitality of Israelis in my homeland. I began collecting global wisdom from authors and from friends and all their advice confirmed my hypothesis that travel is accessible. And even, that traveling as a young woman, not yet 21 years old, was accessible. Armed with those whispers of knowledge I set out into the world on a  journey of my own and have continued to move ever since. Travel has led me to understand that there are few things that feed my spirit like self-exploration and  curiosity. Alone in the world with  only  my intuition as a guide,  I can see myself so clearly. I move in order to be moved. Because travel strips us down to our rawest self: it forces us to let go of our pre-conceived notion of limits and boundaries, allowing us to reimagine our human potential to connect with others, and more importantly, with ourselves.   Let’s wander.

We're standing at the bar top - Pepe, Luca and me - drinking rum with ice to cool us down. The humidity of this South American evening wraps itself around me. I'm in a sultry dress looking older than usual, older than 25. My companions are pushing 40, with faces worn by age and children. As we drink, we don't say much for a long time; the music has taken us away, transported us to a world where only the beat - and nothing else - exists. We're at 1940, it's old Cuba here in New Colombia. I can feel eyes turn toward me as my hips move faster, so I move behind the crowd to feel the music in ecstasy and in peace. Next to me, an older couple dancing like they've had thirty years together to find their rhythm. It's beautiful. It's exotic. It's intoxicating the way they flow. He can't take his eyes off her, even after all these years. The music gets faster, the air, hotter; cigar smokes mixes with sweat. It's so sexy here in Cartagena. There are no problems here in Colombia, at least not tonight. Pepe, another drink!

What constitutes a travel experience that you must have? How about not a place but a state of mind?  Discomfort, out of your element, an embodiment of what it means to be foreign. Displaced, but grounded. Unfamiliar but awake, alive. What if the best travel experience you must have is simply remembering how to see things anew again? Travel is a teacher that gives us a necessary glimpse of other, and I never want to stop experiencing everything that is not me. Everything that makes me feel small and large at the same time. What a joy, what a privilege to marvel at all the villages, all the lakes, all the towns, all the roads that lead to somewhere. The best kind of travel reminds us there is too much to even fathom, so why fathom farther than right now? This very moment. Here I am, I was here.

the first taste of summer apricots & arancini

fresh pasta, sardines & wild fennel

passing an accidento, per favore, back and forth with G.

skin darkening under the sun

an island so remote not even all Italians know what it is

there is something sublime about a place suspended in time, where not even your fears can find you

i closed my eyes & felt attached to the island but not enough to let it hurt

i don’t want to say goodbye to something beautiful again