About a year ago, I wrote an article about the places I want to visit one day. I made it into a bucket list and while that list is dynamic and will change as I grow older, I do know one thing, and that’s the reason why I want to travel in the first place.

Ever since I was a little girl, I have felt the need to travel and an insatiable curiosity to expand my horizons. I watched movies about travelling like Under the Tuscan Sun and Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, where bright, young women left their comfort zones to expand themselves and the life they know. I’ve never really traveled and so of course, it’s something that needs to happen one day, if I truly want to know who I am.

I’ve never really left the United States, the farthest I’ve gone has been to Canada to visit Niagara Falls, and that was just a day-trip. Now this trip was fun and I don’t regret it considering I was approximately 10 years old, but now I’m 20 and I feel like I need to explore more.

Growing up in Pittsburgh, PA you pretty much have everything you need in terms of culture and entertainment, but there’s something about traveling to new places that make you feel your most authentic self.

I believe that travelling is a time where you can focus completely on yourself and on your state of mind. For example, when you go to an island, you disconnect from the world (although, many people tend to utilize social media to show off their trips), or when you go to places like Barcelona, you can be surrounding and fully immersed by culture.

If you think about it, people often travel to get away from work – or even, to get away from their “reality”. It’s treated as an escape where you can be whoever you want because there’s nothing truly at stake. The life you live is left behind when you step off of your mode of transportation.

Also, if you’ve lived in one place your entire life, there’s so much missed. The world is full of people and different kinds of lives that you don’t know, and if that’s an experience that could be life changing. Living in place your whole life shuts you away from an entire world. A world filled with beautiful people and beautiful things.

Now that the world is in a state of chaos, I think it’s important to remember where you came from, but also it’s important to understand the places that are not in a good spot. Just because it’s not your country, that doesn’t mean it has no value.

It would be amazing to walk the streets of an unknown place, where I can leave my life behind and learn something new, somewhere new.