Rediscovering a Sense of Adventure

I seem to have developed a love of travel. I haven’t always been this way although in recent years I’ve traveled all over North America for work, which is quite different. When I was a teenager, the summer before my junior and senior year of high school, I was lucky enough to go to Europe. My first time there was to stay with my Step Dad’s family in Germany and work at the kindergarten his sister had in her home. The next year I took it upon myself to find a summer drama program in England and organized the trip around that. I visited Edinburgh, Scotland and was able to stay with my brother’s friends and see where my grandparents were from. I traveled to England alone, found my way to Oxford and attended a two-week intensive theater program before going to visit a friend in Belgium and back to visit family in Germany before returning home. I think I’ve had the adventure in me the whole time, but I lost it somewhere along the way, maybe in my 20’s when life became more burdened with adult stressors. However, I’ve always been independent and at least didn’t lose that.

I love being at home. I’m an introvert and would be happy to be at home most nights. I need familiarity, and my home environment is instrumental in how I feel. I don’t love meeting new people or talking to groups of people all evening; I don’t find excitement in this type of social interaction. I remember a few years ago someone telling me he booked a trip to Spain and it would be his second solo trip. He told me that he loved traveling solo because he got to meet new people that way. He could sit at a bar and talk to people who would have otherwise not met. That did not sound like my idea of fun and I also rarely drink so why would I want to hang out at the bar and find random strangers to chat with? The thing is, he was right, traveling alone gives space to find connections with others – it’s absolutely a profound experience to travel on your own. I’ve seen articles about the benefits of solo travel since my first experience, and I am here now to echo the same ideas and inspiration and to hopefully inspire others to get out of their comfort zone a little and see what else is out there.

Since my first trip, one year ago, there have been two that came after it, in January and May 2016. In these three trips, I have traveled to: Edinburgh Scotland, Dublin Ireland, Galway Ireland, Oslo Norway, Bergen Norway, Kiel Germany, Amsterdam Netherlands, Antwerp Belgium, Vienna Austria, Salzburg Austria, Budapest Hungary, Cork Ireland, Seville Spain, Barcelona Spain, Venice Italy, Milan Italy, Lugano Switzerland, Reggio Emilia Italy, Copenhagen Denmark, Nice France, Cinque Terre Italy, Rome Italy, Athens Greece, Berlin Germany, and Flam Norway. I list all of the cities individually because they are all important to me and each hold a story of some type of adventure, no matter how big or small.

Because I took the leap to travel and be reminded how large and yet how small the world is and see what is beyond my backyard, I have found more passion and fulfillment in my life. In August 2015, I kept hearing about the refugee crisis in Europe and was quite naïve and ignorant as to what had been going on. Then I found myself seeing it first hand, at the Vienna train station and again in Salzburg Austria. Human beings stranded because they fled their war torn country. They risked everything, all of their familiar comforts, the cities they loved and called home – these are people like you and me who have loving families and have tragically been caught in the middle of something they never asked for. Seeing this brought a whole new depth to my trip and was more reality than I expected to see on this, my first solo adventure trip to get out of my own reality. Before seeing such tragedy, I had actually started the process to volunteer locally with the International Rescue Committee (IRC), which helps refugees who are brand new to the USA. However, seeing it first hand fuelded my passion further and during my May travels, I spent two weeks in Athens, working with the refugee children at the Piraeus Port camp.

If I didn’t take that first trip, I would have missed finding out more about myself, finding more compassion, a different kind of independence, drive, and motivation to do more with myself and with others. I even had the opportunity to let go of my reserved, introverted tendencies and sing along to a song from The Sound of Music on a tour bus. There is always more to learn about oneself and the world around us, and I’ve found travel can be one way to facilitate self-growth and knowledge in a fantastic way.