The 3 Best Places to Travel Now!
The Lost Art to Explore our inner lands demands a change to our habits and a new approach to travel .
It is the year that astrologers and futurists fell completely out of their predictions. The same thing happened unfortunately with travel influencers and aficionados.
All you have to do is look at the headlines on Medium last January and a few weeks before. The proposals were attractive. Diving in the luminous beaches of Thailand, explore the hidden wildlife of Indonesia, discover the temples of Maya but are all now out of the discussion. Coronavirus is here and there, threatening everything and everyone.
So where can you travel right now on this blue sphere and have a great time? Explore the hidden pearls you are looking for and come back refreshed, richer in experiences and ready to continue what you are passionately doing?
Nikos Kazantzakis, the famous Greek writer often said that “in this life the greatest angels are dreams and travel”.
Τhis year, however, dreams of long journeys seem to have to be postponed. Machu Picchu, the Amazon, the Zambezi waterfalls, the Aswan in the Nile, the Ganges are hard to reach destinations that are almost forbidden. Airlines have reduced flights dramatically, only one in three hotels are open, everything has been difficult.
And yet. These places look distant, strange, utopian. Invisible spots on the map that unseeable lines connect each other, seem to be neural connections of the body of our world. Around a secret and invisible center. A center that is eternally searching as it wanders. The traveler.
Us. Everything revolves around us. The journey is the movement of the body and the rejuvenation of the senses in the companion of the human soul that always leaves behind the borders and boundaries. So these times are exceptional and this year we will set as the destination of our journey the farthest edge that exists in the universe. Ourselves.
We will travel within ourselves to seek the dreams and motivations that are worth living and transforming ourselves and our world for the better.
If your travels are driven by curiosity, the search for the wonderful and a sense of escape from everyday life, then follow these 3 things worth doing this summer, NOW, if you are a true explorer and traveler.
First, turn to the simplicity of nearby things. Explore a nearby mountain that has a small waterfall and its energy is hidden somewhere. Make a walk to the forest and the wonders it always encloses. Because every forest is forever a genius organism that emits life. Find a beach untouched with incredibly clear waters and swim. Maybe discover a monastery nearby and the sanctity of his battle for survival. A small shop that is still surviving, selling selected and beautiful fabrics, furniture maybe books. You can even look for the wild beauty of the stars, but outside the city limits and lights to be able to see them in their full splendor.
Second, look for Slowness and its culture. Do everything without the deadlock of the compelling time of obligations. The Berbers in the desert say that “those who are in a hurry do not know that they are already dead.”
It is worth tasting the food you love and rediscovering the aromas, flavors, shades that you may have forgotten. The laughter of your friends and loved ones. You will see that you will come in contact with a creature, inside you, that has not changed at all since you were a child and remains stubbornly innocent. You will feel at the same time that your life remains attractive, charming, mysterious, dreamy but always authentic. So you with her.
Third and perhaps most important of all. Make a deep dive into yourself. The question must be asked again and again and again in every human life that follows the wise prompting of Socrates. Examine yourself. Why do I travel? Why do I like to search and find? What is my inner self constantly searching for?
Make a path to freedom, autonomy, independence. For God’s sake do not make this path depend on the distance of places and time. If the world around you does not fit you, crush it without having to go to China like Marco Polo.
Let others analyze that tourist arrivals will be reduced, hotel beds will be left with the same sheets, accommodations will be reduced to a minimum and receipts will spread despair to those who are just looking at them and their poor numbers. You are the traveler and the explorer. If the Coronavirus wave does not allow you to travel and wander for a few months, then you will do it where your heart desires. Where you can for now. But you will do it!
In a place near you, with your rhythm and you as the protagonist of the movie of your life. The experience is still yours . You will thus feel the power of the concurrence offered by the inner personal journey that remains vital to you if it is made by a true and authentic traveler. “See the journey with the eyes of the heart”, said the Sioux when they began their long journeys.
The truth is usually before our eyes, as long as we can look for it, to seek it, to observe it with admiration to reveal it with all the innocent gazes of the explorer and traveler. Our inner journey also requires you to be flanked in your things.
Open your eyes and look there, cultivate the art of self-memory, give peacefulness wherever you are and live what is worthwhile. This is the way you see the world. Embracing the wonders, the things and the miracles that move in its breath.
After all, the nearby exotic has an unparalleled charm. Imagine the little kid who knows deeply that only within him all this acquires brilliance and truth. The nearby line of the horizon may still have virgin places to discover and some old and forgotten ones to meet again.
Every trip within us is also a pleasure and an adventure. Dare differently this difficult year!
It may give you the same sense of vastness that captain James Cook felt when he first encountered the vast openness of the Pacific Ocean.