I love blogging about dating and relationships. It’s my thing. But I also have a secret passion for travel writing. I’ve done it only sporadically though, because lately I haven’t been able to afford much time or $ to go anywhere but the grocery store. But my experiences are always with me. They are never what I expect, and always somehow better. Travel has a way of sneaking up on you like that. It changes the mood before you even realize it has started to work.

Travel has helped me during the lowest times in my life—when my heart has been broken, when I have been broke, and when I have felt like I was at an impasse, unable to figure out where to go next. One of the best trips I ever took was a solo experience, a hiking trip halfway around the world. It was fan-tastic because it helped me release all those mental demons. There is something about getting away that makes the noise in your head finally quiet down.

I slept in sheep dung and hiked through knee-deep mud and rain, and I was unhappy about getting older. I had no boyfriend, a job I wasn’t happy with, and no money to buy that apartment I’d been saving for. I thought my life had somehow gone off course, that I’d made terrible mistakes, and that I had no idea what I was doing. So why not sleep in a little sheep dung below the most amazing sunset I’ve ever seen in my life? It sounds awful until you are standing in it

Also not what I expected. So if you have the opportunity, book that trip. Even if your friend can’t make it. Even if your boyfriend dumped you. Even if it scares you to go alone. Even if it costs more than you’d like to spend. Forget those new boots. Trade them in for a plane ticket and see what happens. Sometimes the decision to go is the part that matters most. The rest tends to reveal itself once you are already on the road.