Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Packing my bags; unpacking my mind


"My Dream" by Mirjan Rooze
As I've been preparing for this trip I've come across a few eloquent thoughts which have resonated in my mind, and have shaped the way I will approach my travels. 
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On how our travels shape us…

1. “Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.” – Mark Jenkins
2. “Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his that he did now know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places.” – Italo Calvino
3. “Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” – Miriam Beard
4. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain
5. “When we get out of the glass bottle of our ego and when we escape like the squirrels in the cage of our personality and get into the forest again, we shall shiver with cold and fright. But things will happen to us so that we don’t know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in.” – D. H. Lawrence

On traveling with open eyes…
1. “As the traveler who has once been from home is wiser than he who has never left his own doorstep, so a knowledge of one other culture should sharpen our ability to scrutinize more steadily, to appreciate more lovingly, our own.” – Margaret Mead

2. “We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.” – Jawaharial Nehru

3. “The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.” – Samuel Johnson

On treading lightly, and freely…
1.“He who would travel happily must travel light.” – Antoine de Saint Exupéry

2. “A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” – Lao Tzu

3. “All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” – Martin Buber

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Only 2 days away..

In only two short days I will depart on a journey..


40,133 miles..
7 countries.
4 continents.
70 days.


Me and several friends will be traveling through China, Tibet, Nepal, Thailand,  Australia, Fiji,  back home briefly and then back to Egypt. I'll be doing a lot of writing, photography, drawing during the 111 hrs of transit that this trip requires, and when I return, I hope I'll have many new  photos, stories and (if I've kept my mind & heart open enough) a new sense of the world and of myself. I can't even imagine how different I will be when I  return from where I am now. 



This trip is bigger than anything I've done before- it's truly a dream come true. While I have done a lot of saving and put a lot of effort & focus into making this trip happen,  I also realize that I am extremely blessed to be able to make this trip. I wouldn't be able to do it without my family's blessing and support, the people who have posted their travel insights online and especially the friends who I will be traveling with. I hope we have a healthy & great time together and that our preparations will pay off so that we'll have more time to enjoy where we are.



I am overwhelmed by the scale of this opportunity. My hope is that something comes out of this trip that is bigger than my own personal happiness and my passion for experiencing the nature & people of faraway places. Hopefully I'll have time during the trip to share some of our photos & experiences here, so whoever wants to can follow along with us on this incredible journey!