The Travel Mentality

The travel mentality is a beautiful, opportunity opening way to walk through life. It’s also a perspective that I struggle to maintain when not traveling. What do I mean? I’m talking about the natural curiosity that comes from stepping into a place for the first time, having the luxury of time to follow your curiosity wherever it leads, to engage in conversation with strangers, to really see your surroundings instead of tuning them out on the way from point A to point B. The travel mentality is a beautiful metaphor for life: we may have a destination in mind, but if we leave ourselves open to the unknown along that journey, we may discover a more enriching path that we may not have even considered or known existed before setting out.

In the last year, I’ve tried to start saying “yes” to as many things as I can. I’ve found that even-though it’s easy to stay in the comfort of my home after a long day of work, I hardly ever regret trying something new, and my friendships and experiences are richer for it.

It’s something I continually remind myself of, to choose action over inaction.

An example from the road: whenever I arrive in a new city I try to take a free walking tour. Besides usually being informative and a good way to get my bearings in a new place, I find that they are also a prime for meeting other travelers and creating opportunities to say “yes” to. When I arrived in Stockholm, I settled into my hostel and got info and times for the walking tours. On the walking tour I met a fellow traveler, Malika. We struck up a conversation and as the tour was ending she told me about a self-guided tour of the art in the Stockholm metro stations, and asked if I would like to join.

I said I didn’t even know about the art in the metro, and “yes, I’d love to join." It was a wonderful afternoon in which we visited a dozen or so metro stations with an interesting range of decor ranging from retro video games to anatomical diagrams in tile.

Just one example of an experience I’m grateful for that I only had because I said “yes.” What’s something you’re glad you said “yes” to recently?

For more photos from Stockholm and elsewhere in my travels, check out my Instagram @AvivGoesEast