Wanderlust, caution

MANILA, Philippines - "I’m from Manila!”

“Where’s that?”

“Philippines!”

“What’s that?”

“It’s in Asia.”

“Asia?”

She looked at me like I was a crazy person. She wasn’t the first. It’s hard not to sound a little mad explaining that I came all the way from Asia to Europe so I could sleep on strangers’ floors and couches by myself. It wasn’t much help that my backpack looked twice my size, and everyone thought I was 16. It was the autumn of 2012.

I flew to Toulouse from Manila with a backpack, two cameras, a rail pass, my life savings, and the scribbled addresses of strangers who would let me sleep on their couches. When Lonely Planet sent me on assignment to France, I decided to extend my trip so I could see more. I didn’t know what I was going to find, but I knew somehow that this was the thing that I was supposed to do. I had 10 days to form a vague plan, and absolutely nothing in my wardrobe was suitable for the fall. But before I could catch my breath, I was on a plane. In the air, above the sea, on the way.

I always knew I wanted a trip like this, but I didn’t realize that I was afraid of it as well. What if it didn’t turn out as amazing as I thought it would be? What if I wasn’t ready? What if I got Taken? What if I go and find out that that wasn’t what I wanted? When I left, it felt like I had taken all my fears along. But magical moments brought back stillness inside me.

An old woman at a pub in France gave me a bottle of wine and told me, “How lovely it is that you’re exploring! In England we have a saying—the world is your oyster, darling. Keep going.” I never understood that thing about the oysters, but she was right anyway. A few days after, I was in La Rambla, drunk on sangria, walking by myself in the rain with a silly smile on my face. I would later on cruise along the Italian Riviera, chase orchestras in Venice, and wake up in a train with the Swiss Alps smiling at me outside my window. Feeling small brought about a weird kind of quiet in me.Traveling alone reminded me of how little I really knew about anything. The more I went, the more I wanted to keep going. It wasn’t always the tourist attractions that intrigued me (though I did cry when I saw the “Mona Lisa”).

After some time I decided I’d seen enough churches and museums. Instead of visiting all the cathedrals, I decided to do a subway pilgrimage, and then pay tribute to buskers. I also made it a point to visit markets, and check out what was on the menu of McDonald’s for each country I visited (also McDonald’s always had free Wi-Fi). The first thing I’d find out was how to say thank you in each place’s language. I learned how to cook carbonara in an Italian home, and how to cuss elegantly from a pretty French girl.

As children we’re told not to talk to strangers, but traveling alone forces you to do just that. Finding people and listening to their story feels like searching for treasure and always finding it. I ended up exploring the Tuscan countryside with two crazy middle-aged alcoholic mothers. I met scientists from Iraq, Cyprus, India, and Nigeria at a youth hostel in Milan. And I wandered around Siena with a guy who finished pre-med in UC Berkeley but somehow ended up touring Europe as an acrobat after he ran off with the circus. I loved asking people where life had taken them and where they began. And every day that I traveled, I was reminded that there were millions of ways to do this. That you could color outside the lines. That you could venture away from home, and come back with brand new ways of seeing. That being lost isn’t always a bad thing.

Being lost so constantly is a strangely cathartic process, once you get used to it. It’s unsettling at first, not knowing where you are or how you’ll get to the next stop. But getting lost reminded me of how much depended on other people’s kindness. I learned to appreciate what was in front of me and not worry so much about where I was headed — to just trust that I’d get there. And most importantly, being lost brought me to a lot of startlingly beautiful places that I never would have found if I had known how to properly read a map.

Yet traveling alone is not easy — especially when everyone in Paris seems to be making out with one another. As the weeks pass, the exhilaration you get from being totally anonymous in a new city turns slowly into loneliness. When I was in Italy, my wallet (sans documents) got stolen by a pickpocket. I had no one to call, no one to talk to about how bad I felt. All the negative feelings were magnified precisely because I was alone. I felt a bit betrayed by the trust and love I put in strangers. I felt really stupid. And most of all, I wanted a hug. To top it off, I couldn’t seem to find the way back to my host. Eventually, I made it by politely asking each bus I needed to take if I could please ride for free. This was a daunting task as none of them spoke English. I made it somehow though.

But the difficulty of being on the road is strangely easier to me than sitting at home, wondering what’s out there. And maybe that is a little bit mad. Maybe they were right to look at me as if I were a crazy person. Maybe it does take some sort of madness to do that to yourself. Maybe you have to be crazy to go to another country with all your money and none of your plans. Maybe you need to be a little nuts to believe that it makes perfect sense to sleep on a stranger’s couch in a city that speaks a different language. But maybe that’s the best way to learn how to cook carbonara, or cuss elegantly in French.