The Real Gift of Travel

This photo was taken in Lagos, Portugal, back in 2022. It marked a big turning point in our lives - the beginning of our extended travels. That’s when we started spending 6 to 8 months each year exploring Europe. Looking back, it was the start of something truly life-changing.

We’ve been back about a week after four and a half months of travel. I’m still adjusting to the time zone and working through some very mixed-up sleep patterns, yet my reflections are already beginning to take shape. So I thought I’d share a few while they’re still fresh.

One of the deepest realizations I’ve had from these past few years of extended travel - spending months at a time living and exploring in Europe - is that I’m not just someone who believes in being a global citizen.

I am one.

I’ve believed in the idea for most of my life. Conceptually, it always made sense: that we’re all connected, that borders are political - not personal - and that our common humanity matters more than nationality. I’ve long embraced that philosophy.

But believing something and living it are two very different things. And travel has turned that belief into something I now carry within me. It’s no longer just an idea. It’s something I know in my bones.

One of the things I love most as Carla and I wander the streets of a new city is hearing a chorus of different languages and accents in the air. Phrases I don’t always understand. Expressions I’ve never heard before. It feels like the world speaking to itself in all its beautiful, diverse voices. And somehow, that makes me feel at home - not in one place, but everywhere.

I love seeing people from all walks of life simply going about their day - walking their kids to school, sitting at cafés, and riding their bikes to the market. There’s something quietly beautiful about the everyday rhythm of different cultures. And I’ve come to realize that’s what I now expect. That’s what feels normal. It’s comforting.

When we return to the States, I notice how different it feels. Not worse, exactly - but quieter, in some deeply human way. Less textured. Less vibrant.

And that’s when it hits me - how much this mix of cultures, languages, and faces has become part of my everyday life. And not just something I enjoy, but something that grounds me. It reassures me. It reminds me, again and again, that at our core, we are: one world, one people.

That line used to feel like a belief. Now, it feels like a truth. A truth I’ve lived. I’ve seen it in the eyes of people we’ve met across the world - people who, like us, are just trying to live good lives. Caring for their families. Laughing with friends. Navigating setbacks. Searching for joy. Just like we are.

Travel brings many gifts - beauty, discovery, a fresh perspective. But for me, its greatest gift has been this shift: a deeper understanding that beneath the surface, we’re not so different from one another. We’re not enemies. We’re not strangers. We’re fellow travelers on this fragile, shared planet. And the more we recognize that - truly recognize it - the better life becomes.

Not because we erase our differences, but because we stop letting them divide us.

If there’s one lasting change travel has made in me, it’s this: I no longer just believe I’m a citizen of the world.

I know I am.