I picked up the pen twice this week thinking I would write something. Both times, nothing came.

Not because there was nothing to say, but because I think I am still recovering from my trip to Albania. Still somewhere in between the version of me that left and the version that came back.

So let me try again.

The past week I travelled to Albania…. and honestly, even now when I look back at the photos, it feels like a pinch me moment. Did that actually happen? Was I actually there?

Back in my teenage days I used to travel to the near by places of Mumbai…local, familiar, close to home. I never once imagined that ten years later I would be travelling to other countries. Dreaming about it? Yes, all the time. But actually doing it… actually being there… that feels so different from the dream. So much more real and so much more than you expected.

The day I started living in Ireland I made a few plans…just like most people do when they move somewhere new. And I started travelling from Dublin. While everyone hopes to visit the more touristy, well-known places, I have always wanted to see the opposite. The places people are still discovering. The roads that are not yet crowded.

Last year it was Georgia, and it was amazing. But Albania felt like a step up from my normal kind of travel.

The person I am when I travel is different from all the other roles I carry in my daily life. There were moments where I thought….no way, this cannot happen. And then somehow it did. There is a particular kind of freedom that comes from being in a place where nobody knows you. Where the people around you are people you will probably never encounter again. That anonymity… it ignites something different in you. It gives you permission to just be.

Whenever I felt doubt creeping in…. oh no, what if…. I would catch myself and think… another opportunity will find another way. I do not fully know how I built that in me. Maybe it came from travelling before. Maybe from knowing that in the past I have faced things that felt impossible and found my way through. So I can do it here too.

The scenery was something else. I still find myself going back to the images just to look at them again. A few of them are below.
If you ever get the opportunity to travel…. please travel. The way it opens your mind is something no article, no reel, no description can fully prepare you for.

That spark of living the way you want, going where your heart says, just following something without overthinking it….it is different. In the middle of a normal 9 to 5, we get so stuck in our own routine and our own heads. A break like this gives you perspective that is bigger than anything you were worrying about before you left.

And I want to say this too….I know it is a privilege to do what I am doing. I do not take that lightly. But the more I travel, the more I see the world, the more I feel that kind and good people are everywhere. In every country, in every corner. That alone makes it worth it.

To more travels!