I feel like a different person when I travel.

I walk with my head up, camera in hand, not thinking twice about asking for advice or sitting alone in a restaurant to write or walking in circles because I can’t read a map. When travelling, I stop noticing myself and notice what happens instead. Even with transport delays, inclement weather, and various discomforts, there’s a sense of calm coolness and detachment, a sense that everything is temporary and will make for a good story later.

When I travel, I feel younger, newer, wide-eyed at the brightness and color of the world. I feel happy and free, light and airy, and I look for the small things that make people tick. The present is enough because I don’t know what the next thing will be.

Of course, I sometimes want to share my joy with someone else, the excitement over whatever it is or wherever we are. When travelling alone, I can usually catch the eye of a stranger and smile, or express my delight to a barista or bartender. It’s fun to see pride and appreciation in their eyes.

For about six years now, I’ve written three things I’m grateful for at the end of each day. When travelling, I’m constantly grateful for the opportunity and for the choices that I’ve made, even the hardest ones, that have given me such opportunity. I find myself comfortable with my decisions and with myself as an individual. I fall asleep at night feeling warm and fulfilled, waking in anticipation of the next adventure. Whatever is here now is good, even in the dark. Everything else can wait.

I noticed my traveller outlook acutely during my recent trip to Greece. I was with two girlfriends and took time each morning to meditate for about ten minutes. I found that it opened my mind at the start of the day to whatever would come and left me clear-eyed and able to simply observe.

In addition to awareness of what was around me, I noticed how I was feeling as the feelings arose. I noticed sensations, energy in the body, my general attitude, and the contentment of a state of equanimity. And I noticed it then rather than noticing the change that often takes place when reality sets back in. This time, I felt a sense of peace instead of its absence.

But it’s different, of course, going from the delight of friends and new experiences to lying in bed in a quiet apartment. That’s the point at which I normally feel inadequate, afraid. That’s the point at which I normally berate myself for making the very choices that I cherished just hours before.

But this time, jet-lagged and lying awake with the physical sensations that normally send me down a rabbit hole of self-doubt, I recalled the interpretation of the same sensations, the same energy, throughout the week. I remembered contentment and delight, warmth and gratitude. And I came to the same conclusion in the darkness that I usually need the day to illuminate – these choices are okay and I’m doing just fine.

I am the same person not traveling as when I’m a traveller. The difference is not in what I’m doing or where I am or who I’m with. The difference is openness, living without judgement, simply experiencing. The difference is knowing today to be enough.

Not all those who wander are lost. – J.R.R. Tolkien