This week, I got back from a month-long trip to Tanzania and it completely changed the way I look at my life.

I enjoyed every second of being in Tanzania (expect for the ones I spent sick), but I longed for home in a way that I had never felt before.

This being said, I have not traveled much and going to Tanzania was the first time I had traveled by myself or outside of North America.

But I realized I was not longing for home but appreciating home in a whole new way.

If you had asked me a day before I had left for Tanzania what I want to do with my life, I would have said travel. Point-blank—all I wanted was travel, travel for work, travel for fun.

But going to Tanzania showed me how amazing my life truly is, without ever having gone traveling out of the United States before. And this was an insane revelation for me because for this moment I had never considered how great my life could be without traveling, I had not appreciated what I had.

And of course I still want to travel, don't be silly. But I do not need to travel for work to be happy, I do not need to be rich, so I am constantly traveling. If when I am older I can travel even once a year, I will feel blessed.

How many people that I met in Tanzania will never even get to leave their country, let alone get as far as visiting the United States?

The fact that I have been able to even go in an airplane or can afford to even drive to Florida, I am blessed to have been some amazing places.

I have always known that I have been blessed with a home, family and friends. But until going to Tanzania, I had never realized all that I truly have to be blessed for.

Clean water, any water at all, hot water, electricity, roads and availability to resources are all things that I had taken for granted before truly experiencing what it is like to live without those things, and I will never take them for granted again.