The moment the plane lifted off, I slipped on my sunglasses. I knew the tears were coming. That city, shrinking behind me on a Friday night, was still alive with countless joys and pains, but for a precious while, none of it concerned me.
Alain de Botton, in The Art of Travel, wrote that few things are more liberating than a plane taking off, and few places more conducive to introspection than a moving vehicle. He’s right. Suspended between two worlds, something just… liberates.
This was just one of countless solo trips: Poland, Southern Portugal, Mallorca, Amsterdam, a monastery retreat, Lebanon. I’ve packed half a year into these departures, one after another.
And I don’t want to stop. I’m not entirely sure why, but perhaps it’s the freedom of identity that draws me in. On a journey, no one knows who I am, and I can be anyone I choose to be.
In this constant cycle of arriving and saying goodbye, I’ve realized something profound: some things you simply have to walk away from to truly let go. You need to distance yourself from the familiar “you,” step out of your usual roles, your daily rhythm, your very language, and even that nagging voice of “what I should be.”
They say the amount of pain doesn’t change, but when the denominator of life expands, the ratio of pain shrinks. Travel, for me, is that expanding denominator.
Emotions on the road are distilled to their purest form: love and hate, joy and sorrow, hope and despair. It’s like downing a few espressos – you’re forced to face everything with heightened awareness, to feel deeply when your mind is buzzing.
Every place I’ve been has become a part of me, no longer just a dot on a map, but a story woven into my soul.
I can still feel the profound weight of Auschwitz in the snow; the pure bliss of golden sunsets by that monastery forest; waking to the thrum of helicopters and wailing sirens in Lebanon; and the clearest eyes and purest joy of children in Nepal.
If you ask what has truly shaped me since adulthood, it’s not work, nor reality. It’s those distant places.
My reading list isn’t just essays and poetry anymore; my playlist now includes Arabic songs. That cedar tree feels etched into my mind, and those countless sunsets always return to me when I’m tired.
Arrival and departure are two entirely different states of mind. That’s why I always find myself crying on the plane leaving. “Have the courage to depart, and the courage to say goodbye,” I told myself that day.
For me, the meaning of travel is simply this: to make the world matter to me.
