Not Every Journey Needs a Map

I thought I needed to do more to grow. Living abroad showed me that sometimes the most radical thing is simply learning to be.

A few weeks before I moved to Germany for a six-month work assignment, I was fixated on all the things I’d do.

The places I’d travel. The stories I’d collect. The version of myself I’d become. More experienced, more cultured, more impressive. I viewed it as a chance to level up, to differentiate myself from the people I left behind. I framed it like a sprint: maximize every weekend, fill every journal page, come home transformed.

And in some ways, I did that.

I ran a half marathon in Mallorca, went skydiving over the Swiss Alps, watched the sunset in Croatia, and hiked through the Black Forest. I wandered canals in Venice, biked alongside Lake Constance, and rowed with a crew in Stuttgart, entirely in German. I made memories I’ll carry for the rest of my life.

But the real shift, the one that actually changed me, didn’t come from movement. It came from stillness.

It came from being alone.
From walking home in the quiet.
From the space between plans.
From sitting with thoughts, I used to avoid.

I thought this chapter would be about collecting moments. But it turned out to be about learning how to be with myself.

---

At first, the stillness was uncomfortable.

The pace of life slowed, and without the usual distractions of friends to meet up with, errands to run, familiar routines. I was left with wide-open days and an even wider-open mind. I didn’t realize how much of my identity had been propped up by movement until I had no choice but to sit still.

I had already been journaling regularly before coming here, but something about the solitude deepened the practice. The words came out differently. With less noise around me, I could finally hear what I’d been carrying. And somewhere in that space, I found the courage to act on something I’d been putting off for years: starting my Substack.

It had lived in the back of my mind for so long, but here, in a quiet apartment thousands of miles from home, I finally created the stillness to begin. No more waiting for the perfect moment. No more hiding behind busyness.

That was the turning point: when I stopped measuring my growth by what I was doing and started paying attention to how I was being.

I went on a lot of solo adventures, not because I was trying to prove anything, but because I genuinely started to enjoy my own rhythm.

---

Hiking to the Bad Urach waterfall just south of Stuttgart was one of the first moments that grounded me. I sat there for over an hour, just listening to the water and writing. It was a calm kind of presence, the kind you don’t notice until you realize how rarely you feel it back home.

Rowing became another anchor. I joined the Stuttgart rowing club, and there was something deeply meditative about being on the water, early in the morning, when the city was still asleep. The calls were all in German, which meant I had to stay hyper-focused to follow the rhythm of the boat. There was no room to drift off mentally. Every stroke required me to be fully there, in sync, or out of flow. It was presence in motion.

Some of my favorite days were the least planned. I biked around Lake Constance from Friedrichshafen to Meersburg, ferried across to Konstanz, wandered the flower fields at Mainau, and ended the day riding into the sunset. I didn’t have anywhere to be. No deadline. No pressure to share or document it. Just me, moving through the world, paying attention.

The next day, I found a quiet spot in Lindau, laid down by the water, and fell asleep under the sun. Woke up when I felt like it. Got moving when I was ready.

There’s a special kind of clarity that comes when you have nowhere else to be.

In Split, Croatia, I met a group of travelers at a local hostel, and we found a secluded spot to watch the sunset. Music played softly in the background. The colors over the water were unreal. It was one of those evenings where everything just clicked, not because anything big was happening, but because I felt completely present.

I spent four days in Venice wandering alleys with no plan. I avoided the crowded areas and searched for pockets of stillness, places where I could sit by a canal, dangle my feet in the water, rest my backpack behind me, and just breathe. I didn’t feel the need to rush or capture it. That simplicity was enough.

---

I also had harder days, like the time I missed my flight to Tenerife and spent eight hours on regional trains from Frankfurt back to Stuttgart. Stressed, overwhelmed, completely off course. But even that turned into something useful. The next day I went to Trier, walked the old Roman streets, visited the Porta Nigra and the amphitheater, and sat alone with a good cup of coffee during Easter weekend, surrounded by strangers who felt oddly comforting. That moment reminded me that calm can still find you, even after a mess of a day.

Some days I laid in the grass at Killesberg Park in Stuttgart for hours, reading, people-watching, letting time move around me. No urgency. Just a body in the sun, letting life be enough.

---

Not every day was solo.

In May, my fiancée and parents came to visit, and I lived one of the most complete days of my life.

That morning, my now-fiancée and I went skydiving over the Swiss Alps. As we dove back to earth, my parents waited in the landing zone. When I touched down, they handed me the ring. She landed moments later, and I proposed, just us in an open field, the mountains behind us, the sky clear. There was no audience. No performance. Just the people who matter most and a moment that felt suspended in time.

We wandered the quiet streets of Interlaken that afternoon, stumbled into a tiny lunch spot with only two menu items, laughed about the jump, and soaked in the joy of it all. Later that evening, we skipped rocks along the lake, my dad and I side by side, my mom taking photos, my fiancée by my side. We ended the day at a spa connected to our Airbnb, unwinding, laughing, breathing in the kind of stillness you can’t force, only fall into. For my parents, who’ve worked hard their entire lives and never had the chance to travel like this, it felt like a gift I got to give them. I would relive that day a thousand times.

---

What this season taught me isn’t something you can measure or capture in photos.

It’s the kind of lesson that lives in your chest.

I used to believe that growth came from motion. That to become more, I had to do more, chase the next experience, check the next box. But here, in the stillness of unfamiliar streets, quiet mornings, and days with no plan, I learned a deeper truth:

You don’t always need to be going somewhere to arrive at something meaningful.

Sometimes the most radical thing you can do is stop trying to shape the moment and let it shape you.

There is a quiet kind of strength in presence. In learning how to sit with yourself, without distraction or expectation, and feel whole.

I came to Europe thinking I’d collect stories.
And I did.
But more than that, I uncovered a version of myself I didn’t know I was searching for.

And when I return home, I won’t just bring back memories.
I’ll bring back that version of me.

The one who knows how to be still and be okay with it.