Girl Goes on an Enlightening Solo Travel Trip and Now has Widened Perspective… I am Girl. But Hear Me Out Still :)

A shift:

Since I spent a good amount of time in the region, living in Morocco for 6 weeks then continuing another few weeks through Mauritania, Senegal, and The Gambia, I ultimately acclimated fairly well to the West African way— loving and embracing the stark change of culture.

Also at this point, my approach to traveling shifted heavily to be more intentional and immersive.

Because the culture in West Africa was so different, and hitchhiking definitely didn’t come with the easily accessible traveling accommodations and conveniences that Europe had, it inevitably forced me to rely on local engagement more to get around.

Which was challenging and exhausting and so so HOT (African desert heat is no joke) at times, but so internally rewarding with the amount of learning and cultural expansion that I felt.

Tamraght, Morocco - day

Tamraght, Morocco - night

In deep retrospect, there is a lot more I could say about traveling. I learned a lot about my personal preference for travel style, and the different experiences that can arise from different approaches.

Hopping from country to country in quick turnarounds or settling into one place for a longer period of time— both are fun and have their value.

Overall though, I found that wracking up new country counts is a lot less meaningful than purposefully and intentionally learning from the new experiences, and sometimes that means slowing down and staying a while.

Just 2 random gals sitting and staying a while in Lake Bled, Slovenia

I also noticed that the most spiritually profitable outcomes I had while traveling, came from time of being culturally challenged or uncomfortable.

Opposed to just traveling around on autopilot, (which I admittedly found myself doing at times while inter-railing around Europe), enduring experiences of initial discomfort and awkwardness ended up giving me the biggest senses of purpose...

Like the initial distress of learning a new skill, where you feel so out of your realm of ability and kind of just want to give up because it’s hard and exhausting and you are an awkward foreigner in this new world of skilled locals, but once you push past that barrier with committed effort and finally see progress, a bridging occurs, a connection between yourself and this new portal of possibility into which you just cracked open.

Even if you’re never a true local or expert in that particular skill, you at least forged a thread of connection to it, built from the desire to learn.

And isn’t that feeling of breaking through the barrier soooo rewarding, and so humbling!?

When I immersed myself and engaged with curiosity, my desire to navigate challenges deepened. Pushing past the discomfort, until I truly could learn and gain understanding, enabling connection and discovering commonalities with the people around me.

That’s how we feel a sense of belonging, a sense of community.

That’s at least how I felt a sense of belonging, and a sense of deep presence while in West Africa, forever a special place in my heart.

Fun shared vans in Dakar

Major homecoming scaries:

Something I was not prepared for though, was the re-acclimation phase back into the States upon coming home.

And it was undoubtedly a strange time to be returning to the homeland (left the US in August, returned in February)...

Beyond the obvious social and political shifts that had unfolded while I was gone, it was also as if I returned with a heightened awareness of some of the (sad & strange) realities of American life, thing’s I’ve long known exist as realities, but that were all now magnified.

If you’ve spent an extended period outside the Global North, maybe you can attest to this strange, unnerved feeling of returning as well.

Or maybe you haven’t, but you can still resonate with a shift in perception.

For example, landing in LAX and making my way towards baggage claim, I was overcome with this pervasive, shocking awareness of the magnitude of privilege and over-consumption that is so ostensibly plaguing this country.

Everywhere I looked in this airport, the heightened awareness of sheer excess seeped out from all corners— the designer shops, the flashy advertisements, the $8 bottles of water and $15 dollar soggy tuna sandwiches, the newest and greatest tech gadgets on glass displays, all roaring in your face and begging to be purchased in this place dedicated to transit, but weirdly showcasing itself as a playground for luxury shopping and suffocating materialism….?

Airports are a crazy place to truly analyze in themselves. What casual airport goer is stopping off at the Terminal 3 Bottega Veneta store to buy a $2,000 bag while they are rushing to catch their flight?

Beats me.

Beautiful beach on the Cabo Verde island of Sal

A Reacquaintance To The Land of Solo Endeavors:

= What I like to call the return home.

A reacquaintance to the land of minding your own business, of extreme independence, of remaining enclosed in your own bubble, of eyes averting other eyes, of dutifully rushing around to accomplish everything on the day’s to-do list, hoping to stay on track with the habitual flow.

No time to linger or chat. No time to wander or explore. No time to fall behind or rest. Time is money!

A reacquaintance to the land of achieving, of gathering accolades and recognition, piling them into the bubble as it expands and swells and outgrows all of the other bubbles in an unwitting submission to the addiction of growth. Hoping to finally feeling a tinge of satisfaction.

But is it not all a ruse? A trap we fall into that drives us closer to the product, closer to the money, but often farther away from each other and from embracing the simple joys of life?

People gathered around to watch pro surfers demolish the waves at Anchor Point, Morocco

Finding inspiration:

As I tried to take it all in and make my way through LAX, my mind flashed back to a cherished sense of ease— to my time spent in Africa, where conversations flowed freely, people’s spirits soared high, and days were refreshingly devoid of the abundances and excesses we thoughtlessly rely on here.

I couldn't help but think... the over-consumption... the greed… the race to the top... the country that I call home that I was now returning to…

It all seemed a little grotesque now, to be honest. Grotesquely enabling, you could say, and grotesquely (undoubtedly) wreaking havoc on our green luscious planet (boooo).

Of course these were just my initial reactions and a direct result of my post-travel come down/re-culture shock/lots of jet-lagged disorientation invoking this critical stream of consciousness.

At the end of the day, we’re all just people— everyone at the airport, everyone I met traveling, all of us are just little human beings. None of us are able to change the arbitrary predicament of which country we are born into.

I think for that fact alone, we all deserve some lenience. So no actual shade to the people of LAX. But a little bit of shade to the American system and capitalism.

But traveling, especially in West Africa, exposed me to a different rhythm of life, one that I saw as more deeply intertwined with the natural gifts of the world and one that we Westerners often stray so far from, one that was deeply inspiring and often refreshing to see.

That is, the gifts of community, nature, and simplicity.

And while I will inevitably slip back a bit into the flow of the system as I go on navigating my life, I don't want to forget what I learned from these other cultures or fall back into a thoughtless disconnect so easily.

My final thoughts I’ll say about traveling are this, before I actually get into the good stuff of what I learned from other cultures:

It’s such a privilege to travel, to have a powerful passport, to have access to educational resources, to live in a country where we have so many “things” at our disposal, holding us up on a constant platform of success.

But this inherent privilege should not blind us from continuous learning and openness to the rest of the world.

We should use it as a tool to widen our perspectives, open up our minds, enhance our empathy and find inspiration in other cultures and lifestyles.

Then maybe we can all cultivate a bit more compassion for each other, for the earth, for lives in all corners of the world.

So, I want to hold onto the memories as reminders and celebrations of alternate lifestyles, I want the inspiration that I feel now to persist and to be shared with others (hence writing this).

Here is what I will continue to think about and carry with me as an homage to my time in Africa, testaments to a stronger sense of community, a life aligning with nature, and simplifying our busy, high-speed lives…

[read next posts]