Cornerstones
Sit a second.
What did you learn from your last trip? Or, what is a cultural cornerstone from the place you live that you really value?
We all travel for different reasons. I travel because I want to see new things. I want to experience new ways of living. I want to spend my time differently. I want to DO my life differently for a while. I want to taste new foods, new fruits, new spices. I want to smell new things. I want to explore the world, and myself, and examine how I interact with it and maybe even come closer to pinpointing “my place” in or on this big beautiful globe.
All in all, I travel because I want to learn.
That sounds easy, right. I bet for a lot of you, those are the reasons you travel, too. But something happens when I get home. I look at my pictures, make some social media posts and then I just kind of forget and settle back into ‘life’ as usual. Like nothing ever happened, like I didn’t learn anything new. And I think it feels this way, because I often don’t take the time to sit down and think about the ‘place’ I was in or the culture I was introduced to. I don’t take the time to analyze the experience I had and the things I learned from my different interactions. And frankly, that’s just sad, because without this portion of it, I didn’t accomplish my reason for traveling in the first place - to learn.
I firmly believe that every single place in the world has something to teach us. There’s something unique about every culture, that the rest of the world would benefit from learning. So, that’s why I’ve decided to create the Cornerstone Series. This is a place for me and YOU to sit a minute and THINK about what the places and cultures we have had the privilege to experience have taught us, and what they have to teach the rest of the world.
I’m going to start the series off with some places that I’ve had the honor of traveling to and existing in for a while now. I’m doing this simply to start the start the conversation. The first few I’ll throw out there are places I’ve spent a lot of time in and feel comfortable talking about, but I need you to join the discussion. You maybe thinking, but why, this is your travel blog. Well yeah, it is, but my view of the world and each of these places is narrow and unique to me. I need you to join the discussion, because a single place will resonate with each individual person differently. Morocco, Kentucky, Appalachia, India, Haiti, France - will teach you different things than they’ve taught me, and all of these lessons deserve to be heard!
Most people plan their travel based on things they want to see or experience; but how cool would it be if we started thinking about the things we want to learn when considering our next travel destination. All that being said, hop on over to the first Cornerstone feature, Morocco, and let’s get this conversation rolling!
