There’s a strange sense of stillness that comes after returning from a backpacking trip. Its exact counterpart is the buzzing excitement that prevents you from falling asleep before you embark. Lists, planning, research, all give way to the good stuff that resides between the two. Months upon months of roaming from place to place –stars scattered upon unfamiliar skies, every step reminding you that the world is still vast and uncontainable, for a moment letting myself believe I was too. My momentos, half forgotten and tucked away, my bag long since deflated and slumped in the corner of the room. Photos shared, re-shared and scrolled through as if I could jump through the screen of my phone and live in them forever.

Since returning from a 5 month backpacking trip through Asia, I find things are uncomfortably familiar.

They say travel broadens your perspective. Before you go, people cram cheesy anecdotes between warnings about places they’ve never been, reciting misconceptions and half-truths passed along like souvenirs of their own fears. But when you’re actually there, the world is rarely what they said it would be. It’s more layered, more complicated, more achingly real.

Being in Asia showed me that there’s another way to live. People are kind, and the warmth is genuine. Meals are more than just food — they’re shared moments, served with laughter and stories. The landscapes are otherworldly, from misty mountain peaks to emerald-green rice fields. And that constant, gnawing sense that something will go wrong? It faded. Unlike the hum of anxiety that seems woven into life in America, I felt something unfamiliar: ease. Days passed without the usual weight on my chest. There was space to breathe, to simply be.

That’s not to say that everything was seen through rose-colored glasses. Asia opened my eyes to things I had never heard about, like the Cambodian genocide or the realities of everyday Vietnamese villagers during the American War — as they call it there, instead of the Vietnam War we’re force-fed back home. News flash: we lost, and I’m glad about it. That perspective shift stung, but it was necessary. Truth often is. The ignorance I walked into Asia with was traded for an unbearable truth which is that we (Americans) are spoon-fed the idea that we’re the heroes. Defenders of democracy, saviors of the world. But out there, the narrative shifts. To a lot of countries, we’re not the good guys. We’re the villains. The damage we’ve caused is etched into landscapes and memories. It’s unsettling to stand in a place that still bears the weight of choices made by people who look like me, under a flag I’ve been told to be proud of.

Reconciling that shattered the tidy worldview I didn’t realize I was clinging to. It made me question the stories I believed about my country, and about myself. The truths I’d kept tucked away were no longer content to stay hidden. And once I saw them, I couldn’t unsee them.

It’s hard to reconcile the beauty of a country with the weight of its history. One day you’re standing on a white sand beach, the water lapping softly at your feet. The sun sets in a blaze of gold and pink, and everything feels infinite. Then the next, you’re walking through a mass grave site, the air thick with the echoes of unimaginable loss. It’s a heaviness that lingers through the people you pass by on the street, the smile of a stranger. It made me confront the simple, unbearable truth that one day I’ll die too, and all the wrongdoings of the world will cease to matter because we’re all headed to the same place. The weight of that realization cracked something open in me. I spiraled, grappling with the absurdity of it all — how a small group of people get to decide who lives, who dies, and which wars, which lives are worth paying for. Not for the people they claim to serve, but for power, control, and profit. And we’re all just supposed to accept it, like there’s no other way to live.

Travel makes these contradictions impossible to ignore. The postcard-perfect views exist alongside the stories of suffering, resilience, and survival. It’s one thing to admire a landscape; it’s another to stand where so much grief has taken root. And maybe that’s the point. You carry both. The awe and the sorrow. The joy and the grief. Because no matter how far you go, the truth remains: wherever you go, there you are.

For the last four years, I’ve cycled between working in the USA for half the year and fleeing as soon as that comfortable, settled feeling starts to creep in. Stability has always felt like collateral for the thrill of leaving my real life behind and stepping into someone else’s. The strangers I meet on the road don’t ask about my childhood or what I’m running from. Instead, it’s the same easy questions — “How long have you been traveling?” “Where are you going next?” — a script I’ve grown comfortable with.

There’s a strange kind of relief in becoming a question mark. No expectations, no backstory, just a moment to exist without the weight of everything that came before. But even then, the echoes follow. The emptiness I thought I could outrun slips into my bag, light enough to forget until I unpack it again.

But maybe trading stability for the unknown is what feels most familiar. Growing up, I never knew what was coming next or when the other shoe would drop. Back then, uncertainty was something to brace for. Now, it’s something I lean into. The unpredictability is mine to choose, and there’s a strange comfort in that. Whatever’s around the corner, at least this time, I’m the one turning it.

But no matter how far I ran, I never left myself behind. The sadness, the fear, the tangled mess I thought I could shake loose — it all tucked itself into my carry-on, taking up space between the souvenirs and the sunscreen. Because the truth is, wherever you go, there you are. You can stare at the most breathtaking view, but if you’re carrying something heavy, it’ll still press against your chest, still make your back ache with the weight of it.

Travel didn’t save me. But it did make me sit with myself. There’s nowhere to hide when you’re alone in a new place, stripped of routine and distraction. The long bus rides, the empty hotel rooms, the unfamiliar streets — they all became mirrors. And slowly, I started to look. To ask myself why I’m so afraid of stillness. To name the things I was running from. And somewhere along the way, the act of moving became less about escaping and more about understanding. Every mile traveled was a step toward confronting the weight I’d been trying to outrun.

I’ll end this long overdue post with an urge for everyone who reads it to stretch out beyond their comfortable worldview and trade it for stepping into the unknown. Learning, unlearning and growing are gifts of the human experience we all have the opportunity to share. Talk to a stranger on the street, put yourselves in the shoes of a someone you share virtually no similarities with. You may find yourself uncomfortable, but travel is one of the best ways to learn more about the world around you, and yourself.

Thank you for reading 🙂