There has to be a reason we put ourselves through sleepless nights on overnight trains, missed planes, and bizarre food. These stories are the things I look to when I am stressed during travel: the small, random, beautiful things that happen along the way.

A Baby Elephant: We were staying at a beautiful safari lodge at Murchison Falls in southeastern Uganda. We spent the evening on safari, and saw all sorts of animals- from lions to giraffes to baby warthogs. It was all a dream, really. The food was wonderful, the scenery spectacular, and there was even air conditioning. We spent the evening playing card games in one of the lobbies of the lodge, and then made our way to our rooms that opened up to the outside. We were walking down the outdoor hallway to our room, when my roommates and I heard a small rustling of leaves in the large bushes nearby.

Crap, I thought, we are about to be eaten by a panther. Are there even panthers in Uganda?? It didn’t matter. Whatever it was, I didn’t want to mess with it…or for it to mess with me.

We stopped and stared at the section of bush that the sound came from, and then noticed that there was a group of people on the far side of the resort, also looking in the same direction.

We ran over to them to see if they had any idea of what sort of animal was making the sound, and they were just as perplexed and unsettled as we were. On a side note, the group of people were also Americans and one of them had attended the University of Kentucky in my hometown. Weird.

Just as we were about to give up on our quest to figure out what animal it was, a small baby elephant emerged from the bushes. It had been trying to reach some delicious leaves on top of one of the smaller trees. Then a larger elephant showed itself behind the baby. This was only 30 yards from our hotel room.

The Old Italian Man: We were on our way to Mount Vesuvius, and had to catch a bus at a nearby town. We had about 30 minutes to spare, and we were starving, so we thought we’d go looking for an ATM so that we could buy a snack. We asked the people at the tour company, and he told us that it was up the road, about 100 meters.

So we walked. And walked. And walked….no ATM in sight.

But we were already far enough from the station that we didn’t want to walk back to ask for more specific directions. So, instead, we asked a small, old Italian man in a leather jacket and hat if he knew where the nearest ATM was. He looked at us and didn’t say anything, so we asked again. No response.

Then he started speaking in Italian and we shook our heads, trying to explain that we had NO idea what he was saying. He motioned for us to follow him, and he seemed nice enough, so we did. We then walked a good quarter of a mile to a small flower shop, where he pointed to a woman.

We asked the woman the same question, and she spoke, in very broken English, that it was down the road. She must have sensed that we were directionally challenged, and she, too, motioned for us to follow her. She left her flower shop and walked us to the nearest ATM.

The kindness of these two complete strangers was my favorite part of that day.

A Soccer Game fit for a Village: We had only just arrived at our homestay village in Kumi, Uganda. We each lived with a different family and areas of living. I was a little uneasy, staying in someone else’s home and living their lives with them.

Right when we were about to settle down for the first time, my Ugandan sister explained to me that there was going to be a football game. I was pumped, being a life-long soccer player and enthusiast. Nervous, yeah. But super pumped. So, we began our walk to the soccer field. I thought this would be an average game, say maybe one hundred people there.

As we were walking, children were chasing behind us, running in front of us, and holding our hands beside us. Children were EVERYWHERE. I began to think that maybe the game would be bigger than I had originally thought. But no number of people had prepared me for the massive crowd that showed up to watch the “mzungu” (white people) to play a local team. I don’t have an exact number, obviously. But I would easily say in the thousands.

Also easily the biggest crowd that has ever attended a soccer game that I have played in. I’m sure we gave them some good laughs with our less than spectacular skills, but I don’t think that is why so many people showed up.

Hostel Friends: I decided to hop on a trip to Interlaken, Switzerland at the last minute before my friends were leaving. Because of this, I wasn’t able to reserve a room in the hostel with them, and instead had to have my own. We got to the hostel around 11:00 pm and the room I was in was completely empty- wooh room to myself!!! Then, about 2 hours later, I woke up to people coming into the room. Should I open my eyes or act like I’m asleep?

I decided to wake up and tell them it was okay if they wanted to turn the lights on the room, so it would be easier to get in and get to bed. But instead we started talking, and I found out at they were students from Georgia Tech, and that they were awesome.

We ended up spending the whole next few days together, hiking and eating and hanging out. It was weird because you wouldn’t imagine that kids from a small liberal arts school in Kentucky would have much in common with Engineering students from Georgia Tech, but it was as if we had known each other before.

Our last day in Switzerland, I convinced my old and new friends to wake up before the sun, and run to the beach to watch the sunrise. So here we sat, 20 people that had previously not known each other at all, now good friends watching the most breathtaking sunrise you could imagine over the Swiss Alps.

Dancing with Good News: We were visiting a guest house in Kigali, Rwanda. The house was absolutely beautiful, surrounded by fresh flowers and on top of one of Kigali’s famed hills and was, appropriately, named Good News. The house is owned by a man who, himself, is a survivor of the Rwandan Genocide. As a movement of reconciliation and healing, he held monthly meetings at his guest house, where survivors got together to pray, talk, and sing.

We had spent the entire day touring different ‘sites of genocide,’ or places where genocide took place. When we returned to the house that evening, people had begun to convene in the back yard. People of all ages gathered and sat in a large semi-circle. The stories that were told were heart-wrenching, but hopeful. Tragic, but full of faith. After the meeting was over, music started playing….and people stood up and began to dance. So, I did too. And we just danced.

Even after everything that had happened, the joy-filled movements of their dances gave me a new look into hope and life. They no doubt thought I was one of the worst dancers they had ever seen- but that didn’t matter.

I was reading a book recently, and a quote very much summed up what I believe travel does.

"Travel, in its very motion, ought to suggest hope. Despair is the armchair; it is indifference and glazed, incurious eyes. I think travelers are essentially optimists, or else they would never go anywhere." -FAF