When I think about how I travel now, it’s obvious it didn’t come out of nowhere.
Growing up, my family traveled a lot — cruises, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas. The kind of trips where everyone else was excited about pools and beaches. I usually wasn’t. Pools and beaches got boring after about an hour. I wanted museums. I wanted plaques. I wanted to know why something existed and who decided it mattered enough to preserve.
At the time, it didn’t feel like anything meaningful. It was just what I gravitated toward.
Part of it, I think, was personality. My family is huge. I’m… not particularly social. Museums, bookstores, quiet wandering — those were spaces where I could move at my own pace without needing to perform or keep up. Fewer people wanted to join, which honestly felt like a bonus. I could disappear into a place and just observe.
Then college happened. I was busy. I was broke. Travel became something I thought about more than something I actually did.
That changed in 2022.
I was 21 when I took my first solo international trip. Greece. I went through a tour group because it felt like the safest way to do something that, at the time, felt huge. My family was worried — I was the first one to do a trip like that, and I was young — but I wasn’t scared. Not even a little. I was curious.
That’s what surprised me most.
From the moment I found the tour group, I was excited. That feeling carried me through the entire trip. We’d spend the day walking through temples with a guide explaining their histories, and then, during free time, I’d head straight to the museums or wander the streets alone. Most of the other travelers were couples, so I was on my own a lot — and I loved it.
Being alone sharpened everything. I could go at my own pace. Turn down random streets. Linger too long in places that caught my attention. I once spent way more time than planned talking to an old jeweler about what he sold and where it came from. There was no schedule pressing me forward, no one waiting impatiently beside me.
That trip did something to me. Solo travel stopped feeling intimidating and started feeling natural. It became my default. I get irritable when I’m around people constantly without the option to disappear for a bit. I like to go with headphones in and eyes wandering. No real destination — just letting a place unfold.
Since then, I’ve traveled to Cambodia, Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Peru. And in every country, I try to do at least two things: visit a museum and seek out some kind of cultural experience. I don’t travel for nightlife. I’m usually back at the hotel by 9 p.m. most nights. I travel because the history interests me — or, honestly, because I saw a video on TikTok and something about it stuck enough to make me want to see it for myself.
Once I’m there, I write. I keep a journal of what I did that day, what stood out, what I ate, what felt strange or familiar. Not perfectly. Not consistently. But enough.
A lot of people travel, take hundreds of photos, post a handful, and then slowly forget the details. When I say “slow travel,” this is what I mean — taking time to notice, to reflect, to recognize patterns between places and cultures. I didn’t do it perfectly in every country. I didn’t finish every notebook. But I did enough to keep the memories from flattening into just images.
Because I want to remember how places felt, not just what they looked like.
This is the lens I’m carrying with me as Bridge & Beacon moves forward. I don’t really travel with the intention of just going somewhere and leaving. Most places end up feeling more like classrooms than destinations. They teach you quietly, sometimes without you realizing it until much later.
Traveling is what taught me how to listen. How to pay attention. How to sit with a place before trying to explain it.
That’s the kind of learning I want this space to hold — the kind that comes from being present and letting places tell their own stories.
What’s a place that stayed with you longer than you expected?
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