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"Where are you traveling?" my friend asked. "Im not sure yet", was my honest answer. "Rather ask me why. And take this lamp if you want" I had just quit my job as an Architect after only a short period in practice. I knew already after finishing my Masters degree that I didn't want to spend my life in an office. I was turning 30 and I told myself to give it five years to save the money before I quit. I lasted about twelve months. In my heart I have always had a deep existential longing for freedom. And adventures. Earlier on I had spent a few years as a skydiver, time after time throwing myself out of an small Cessna airplane. I had experienced that freedom. I had also discovered meditation and was practicing another kind of freedom, the freedom of a silent mind. And now I was inviting my friends for a yard sell. The decision had been made to let go of my material possessions. As I was getting more and more skeptic to the capitalistic system I decided to make my complex relationship with money part of my journey. During that year I had started traveling alone, which I never done before. I took two weeks of my new job to go as a solo traveler to my first Burning Man festival in South Africa. I told my boss it was a festival for experimental architecture. And after spending a month that summer in an Ayahuasca retreat in the breathtaking Alpujarra mountains of Southern Spain, I was again reminded that what I truly appreciate in life is simple. I always loved outdoor life, to shower under a bucket and eat vegetables directly from the garden. And it became even more clear to me that part of what was making me feel stuck was all the stuff I collected in my nest. What previously gave me a feeling of safety was no longer serving the purpose. I went back home to Sweden with the intention to quit my job and not let anything pull me back into my old way of living. So there I was, gifting my entire home away to embark my next journey. And the two years that has passed since has been transforming. I have been taking cheap flights and busses, hichhiking, housesitting and working for food and shelter in different parts of the world. Freedom is to know yourself. And I have learn a lot by my solo travels. Like the paranoia when I was squatting an abandoned house outside a small costal village in Spain. I was kept awake one night by a big storm when the light suddenly went on in the empty building next to mine. I had earlier tried to explore that building without success since all the doors and windows where properly sealed with nails and I had also noticed that all the power lines from both buildings where cut. That night I practiced deep breathing and rational thinking. Or to experience the rawness of nature while spending twelve days completely alone, housesitting a giant cave in the mountains with five dogs and a redtailed hawk, Mr. Spike, who I fed from a glove. And to learn how to follow your intuition, as when I decided to leave the ecovillage in Costa Rica just after a few of weeks when my plan had been to stay for three months. And when you end up with a group of people like the anarchist soup kitchen in San Francisco that every week where dumpster diving and collecting donations from farmers markets to cook a meal for homeless people on the street. The joy of contribute and exchange. The stories piles up quickly while traveling. True freedom comes from within, but when you take that leap into the unknown you get not only to explore wonderful places but also your own existence, your boundaries and desires. It brings you closer to yourself. So rather ask me why traveling instead of where.