Travel not to see the world — but to feel it, through the lives of others
My journey began not with planner itineraries or curated guides but with curiosity — that quiet yet insistent voice urging me to meet people, see places, understand cultures, and gather stories. I crossed Europe and lived in lands as diverse as Estonia, New Zealand, China, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka. Along the way, the road did not consume me — the people did.
Eight years ago my footsteps found rhythm in South Asia. Sri Lanka was my first long embrace. Then India — that immense, ancient, bewilderingly beautiful land that, once touched, never let go of my heart.
I reached New Delhi in 2021, a city alive with sound, color, chaos, and stories. My first destination was Agra. Of course, the Taj Mahal astonished me — its marble perfection as timeless as history itself — but it was the human pulse around it that moved me more profoundly. I sipped chai with locals, laughed with guides, and listened to stories of everyday life — moments that did not belong in any travel guide but belong in memory forever.
My journey across India was not linear; it was immersive. I travelled north into the mountains of Kashmir, where people carry resilience like an older sibling carries wisdom. I walked through deserts and plains, across bustling cities and silent villages, eastward through lands shaped by rivers that seem older than our understanding of time, and down south where the earth opens into seas and green heartlands. Everywhere I went, I sought one thing: connection.
Not simply conversation — presence. Empathy. Recognition of shared humanity even amidst difference.
There were moments when language was absent but communication was complete — a smile, a shared meal, hands raised in welcome. People showed me their world not because I was a foreigner, but because I care to see them fully. This is my travel — not just observing life, but entering it, breathing it, and leaving with a heart fuller than when I arrived.
In Kerala, the journey reached a kind of quiet culmination. Not an ending — no — but a moment of peace, like arriving home after years on the road. Surrounded by water and gentle rhythms of life, I felt as if the long arc of my travels in India had come full circle. I had travelled through India — its landscapes, its languages, its histories — but more importantly, into its soul.
And yet, I know this is not a final chapter
There are lands still unknown to me, lives I have yet to meet, souls whose stories I will carry forward. I will walk new roads, taste new teas, sit at new tables. But I will never leave India behind entirely. A part of me — the part that learned how vast the world is yet how small our hearts can knit together — will forever belong to the land and the people who taught me to travel deeply.
Travel did not complete me. It revealed me. And in every journey from here on, I will continue to touch shores and hearts, because that is the true terrain of a wanderer: not the map beneath his feet, but the connection living in his heart.