Il mio primo viaggio da sola

Yes.. Travelling..

Sang Lucio Battisti... and I believe there is nothing more wonderful, and there never will be, and that it will always be a positive experience.

Buying a ticket and setting out in search of new worlds. Buying a ticket and setting out in search of ourselves. Buying a ticket and setting out to feel part of this world. Seeing places you have never seen, tasting food you have never tasted, listening to words you have never heard.

And so, after graduating I decided to go to Indonesia. Alone. I was twenty-one and felt a strong yearning to discover new places. On 24th November I left for Bali. My first one-month trip alone. Twenty hours in the plane, I crossed the world in one day and reached a remote island in Indonesia.

I was perhaps a little scared, or rather excited, but at the same time I felt such a strong desire to go beyond, beyond myself, beyond the daily life that surrounded me, beyond the things they taught me in school, beyond the world they made me see up until now. To be aware of my abilities, to feel great strength within me and not be afraid to be alone, because you are never alone. To feel part of it all. To watch sunsets under new skies, the reflection of colours breaking into new landscapes, a sense of freedom that pervades us, and to be happy.

To go to such a faraway place, not in a physical sense, but rather in that it is culturally different from our way of living, and so it helps you understand many things. It helps you to look inside yourself and ask yourself if you really need all this wellbeing to be happy. To see truly poor people who are still smiling. Children trying to sell you something, rather than being in school. Tourists that binge in restaurants and local people who humbly eat on the roadside with their hands.

I visited other islands and came into contact with people from those places. A journey that I will always carry inside me, a journey that is within me every day.

I urge my dear readers to travel. It's not true that you need who knows how much money to be able to, but that obviously depends on you. I am someone who who is easily satisfied; I don't have to stay in luxury hotels or eat in the restaurant every day. For me, that is not travelling but squandering money. There is a difference between a holiday and a journey.

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