Many people think we travel to rush out into crowds of people, but most of us travel to travel within. There is no more quiet and central space than the anonymity of being in a foreign place without ties or obligations.

In quiet moments sitting alone at a cafe, looking down on a village from the edge of a cliff, or in the suspended peace of a soaring cathedral, we can pause to look back with objectivity and forward with intelligence and hope. Travel can be a series of these small epiphanies. With distance we can see patterns, themes, and questions our life has posed to us, and sometimes in a faraway place, the answers come.