In the end, the journey wasn't all that much about traveling.

My soles brought me places, but immersion taught me places, taught me people and lives.

________

as seen on

As months became years and then yesteryears, the initial journey became a nomadic lifestyle.

hurling little answers at the big questions in life

tales from alongside the road, where the journey is not all about traveling

a stream of words and rattling trains of thoughts going just about nowhere 

a selection of very short very true stories

Why let any guidebook, travel blog or superficial advice shrink your leaps of discovery to baby steps in their footprints?

Indeed, marvelous sights adorned the beaten path, but miles astray, between the guidebook lines, the beauty didn't vanish. And beyond beauty there was authenticity behind these touristy facades, there were challenging discoveries, unsung heroes and cultural normalities that were ever new, different and captivating.

Stark contrasts paved the road, but conspicuous similarities were underneath it all. Lives differed vastly from one place to another, but the more so within one nation, region or group. There were extroverts and introverts everywhere, clerks and bosses, dreamers and doers, dreaming doers. Our universal differences unite us as one species of monkey merely disguised in a human wardrobe. In the same breath our distinct experiences assemble unique minds, feelings and memories – our very own worlds.

"Are the people living there unhappy with their situation?” I asked upon looking at the huts. "Why? They have a roof and something to eat. It suffices them,” were the kid's exact words.

It's not so much the place itself that becomes special to one or a mere side note to another. It's your individual experience there, the people you meet, the little coincidences, which ultimately write the narrative.

But, as much as I believe that happiness is an individual pursuit, social ties seem like the one universal remedy for most worries in the world.