Written July 2022, Bornholm, Denmark
Once again, I’m reminded of how much better I feel when I strip life down to the absolute basics. Maybe I really am a vagabond. It’s strange, isn’t it? That by cutting away what most people would call essentials—a bed, a shower, clean clothes—I actually feel freer. Lighter. Like right now, cycling around Bornholm with my tiny pop-up tent, some cans of tuna, wearing the same smelly clothes. I can breathe because I’m not suffocating under the weight of things I don’t really need. Too much stuff clogs up my mind, like a bad drain. I can’t access the good stuff up there when life revolves around external junk. The less I have, the more I have.
Stray Dogs and a Guatemalan Bakery
Travel has been my greatest teacher in this. It’s been my medicine and my mirror. Before I left home at 19, I thought life had to look a certain way—like some glossy Instagram post where you live in a cool city, have a disgustingly expensive couch you rarely sit on, and spend 40 hours a week stuck in a cubicle so you can fund a life you’re pretend to enjoy. I thought that was the path. But that false belief shattered the moment I started traveling, because it showed me that there are a thousand different ways to exist in a thousand different places. I just need to find what feels right for me.
In a way, traveling has taught me how to practice poverty like the stoics told us to. Not in a romanticized, aesthetic kind of way, but the kind where you sleep on the cold concrete street of Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni, because the bus was full, curled up next to stray dogs in the freezing cold, just waiting for the morning light. I’ve stayed with a Slovakian guy on the Gold Coast of Australia in what I refer to as the homeless shelter because there were five of us, all strangers, scattered across random spots in his tiny living room. I’ve slept in the back of a Guatemalan bakery on a non-existent mattress, a place where people got dodgy tattoos, and I still don’t know what those weird marks on my legs were afterward. And of course, I’ve lived out of a backpack for 17 months straight, learning how to detach from everything except what I could carry.
Running Away or Running Toward?
But here’s the thing: ever since I started traveling, I haven’t been able to stop. And now, I don’t know where I’m supposed to land when home doesn’t feel like home anymore. That’s the crux of it: the push and pull between running away from everything, and running toward something undefined. It’s the tension between movement and stillness, and I’m not sure where I’ll land in it.
When I first ran away, it was pure escapism. Life at home was tough, and I needed out—needed it. It was probably the best decision I ever made. It opened my eyes to a world I’d never even imagined, to a world I could actually design for myself. It made me believe I wasn’t trapped, that I wasn’t defined by the circumstances I was born into. I could create my own path. It lit a fire in me—one that burned so brightly.
But now? It’s not about running anymore. It’s just who I am. It’s in my bones, in my veins, in the marrow of my soul. That’s the part that’s hard to explain—this compulsion to always be moving. And I’ve spent so many nights wishing I could just do what everyone else seems to do—find a place to settle, build something concrete. Buy a house. Maybe even find a partner to share it with. But every time I try to imagine it, I can’t. Because I’m made of some different kind of stardust, the kind that drifts or explodes or something in-between.
The Only Real Destination
Lying here in my sleeping bag, the forest floor soft beneath me, waves crashing gently in the background, and the sky turning into a pastel dream—I realize something. I don’t know how to fix all the contradictions in me yet. I don’t know how to balance the need for movement with the longing for stability. But I do know one thing: when you strip away the excess, the distractions, the need to impress anyone—you get closer to yourself. You uncover what really matters. Maybe that’s the only destination worth chasing.
Even if, for now, it’s just me, my backpack, and the ants in my tent.
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