I travel to learn, to experience, and to feel all the spectrums of being human in this world.
I was born with gypsy blood. I’ve had wanderlust for as long as I can remember. To me, traveling is about creating yourself through wandering, finding adventure and letting it find you, gaining the courage to travel alone and finding bliss in it, exploring the unknown, getting out of your comfort zone, allowing the currents of the universe to flip your world upside down, conquering your fears, getting your heart broken by harsh realities, and falling in love endlessly with this world we know so little of. All I need is my backpack, camera in hand, this insatiable wanderlust, the curiosity to explore, and a burning passion to tell stories and inspire souls.
I believe that there is an intricate connection and energy that is found within each place, each person, each moment. There’s is always something that is hidden between the lines waiting to be seen. I believe that others must witness the very essence of a being in their most raw and unfiltered moments. Those moments would not have been captured had there not been the right eyes to see it. It’s in those moments wherein true beauty lies and life itself resonates. I want to capture that through portraits of strangers, through wandering the world, through love stories, through stories of adventures & misadventures. I want to capture it all.
For all the wanderers.
For the nomads, adventurers & dreamers who can’t sit still.
For anyone who has ever dreamt of seeing the world.
For anyone with an insatiable wanderlust.
For anyone with gypsy blood.
The free ones and the caged ones.
This is for you.
May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.– Irish Blessing
Lesson: No Regrets
In the end, on our deathbed, what we regret most are the chances we never took. What could be more beautiful than looking back at the end of your life and knowing that you did what you came here to do? Isn’t this the way you want to close your eyes for the last time? May we all realize how beautiful this life is before our eyes close on this incarnation.
The nomadic life can force us to build walls to protect ourselves. Sometimes it’s the only way to keep going, keep moving forward. We can’t afford to get sidetracked from our journey by just one individual. We discover that we cannot be reckless with our hearts or that of others.
There’s good reason why travelers are always looking at the sunset. It’s a bittersweet metaphor for something so blindingly beautiful, but lasts only for the briefest of moments. You blink and it’s gone.
Perhaps it’s because everyone we have met along the way has somehow contributed to the person we have become. And it doesn’t matter if we spent an hour with them or a small lifetime. They leave their mark on us and we are forever changed. There are people who come into our lives at a specific time and place and never stay. And there are others who come back and never want to leave. My wish for you is that you stay open. That you allow yourself to follow your impulse, to be pulled into the unknown. That you let your solitude merge with another’s.
– Lois Yasay
Lesson: Being Lost
We make mistakes. Wonderful. The joy of error. The wonder of ignorance. The pure manifestation of uncertainty.
– Mark Dyczkowski
It is important to grant yourself permission to wander as part of your spiritual journey. We don’t grow if we are stuck in the same habitual patterns. May you find the courage to leave the well beaten path behind. So often we misinterpret this as being lost, however there is a kind of immersion in the not-knowing that is actually quite necessary if we are going to find our way Home. So much information can come up when we are looking in no particular direction. By surrendering to the unknown, we create the space for a deeper knowing to emerge. It is in the unknown that creation happens. In the heart of not knowing, the paths that we are here to walk reveal themselves. May your sense of wander lead you home.
You know, the smallest thing can change a life. In the blink of an eye, something happens by chance—and when you least expect it—since we’re on a course that you could have never planned, into a future you never imagined. Where will it take you? That’s the journey of our lives: our search for the light. But sometimes, finding the light means you must past through the deepest darkness.
– Nicholas Sparks
Lesson: How to Love
If travel is like love, it is, in the end, mostly because it’s a heightened state of awareness, in which we are mindful, receptive, undimmed by familiarity and ready to be transformed. That is why the best trips, like the best love affairs, never really end.
– Pico Iyer
We must be under no illusion that all soul mates are meant to last a lifetime. Some are only meant to last a moment. That brief soul gaze with a stranger at the grocery store that reminded you of your own essence was just right. That unexpected weekend encounter that set your spirit to soar is perfect. That great love that walked away after cracking your heart open was just what the soul doctor ordered. Whatever you need to smooth the rough diamond of the soul. No matter how long they last, profound connections paint pictures of possibility in the sky, expanding our lens for all eternity.
Lesson: Humble and Kind
Travel will humble you. It will make you realize that you don’t own anything. When you’re stranded somewhere with just the shirt on your back, a rucksack and a few notes in your pocket, you find out how strong your spirit really is. It will leave you to the kindness of strangers. It will make you grateful for everything that’s given to you and you will be more generous to those in need.
My sandals are torn, my feet are dirty and sore. I’ve seen many friends come and go. I fell in love with a beautiful girl, and then felt my heart break in two. I’ve cried tears of happiness and sadness. I’ve experienced jaw-dropping sunrises and heart-melting sunsets. I’ve felt intense moments of joy and ecstasy. I’ve been both the teacher and the student. I’ve seen extreme compassion and also hatred. I’ve been broken down to the point of exhaustion and also filled with the most ecstatic energies of the Shakti.
There is such magnificence in the vastness of the human experience. With all the ups and downs, feelings and emotions, beginnings and endings, I will always remember to honour the cycles of life, and watch how they begin to honour me. I’m home again.
– Mike Yap
Lesson: The Beauty of Being Scared
This is where I am standing right now, I’m right on the edge of it, I am going to get to the other side of this place, but I am so uncomfortable and I know that this is where it all starts.
– Elena Brower
One of my philosophies is to always pick the choice that scares you a little. The status quo, the path of least resistance, the everyday routine—that stuff is easy. Anyone can do that. But the right decisions, the decisions that challenge you, the ones that push you to evolve and grow and learn, are always a little scary.
If you are brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting, which can be anything from your house to your bitter old resentments, and set out on a truth-seeking journey, either externally or internally, and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue, and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher, and if you are prepared–most of all–to face and forgive some very difficult realities about yourself… then truth will not be withheld from you.
– Elizabeth Gilbert
Lesson: The Diversity of People
Sonder.
n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.
Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.
– Leonardo Da Vinci