We love adventure and creating new memories. When we look back through our photos, we are transported back to that moment in time. The photographs we take will be here to remind us of places we’ve been and people we’ve met, long after our wanderlust has subsided. We travel, not to escape life, but for life not to escape us; the goal is to die with memories, not dreams. We are loving the journey, whether it be happy and easy or the occasional struggle, which is bound to happen from time to time. Inconveniences are brushed off in favor of choosing happiness, and knowing that there should be no whining when we are so very fortunate. We’re living our lives fully with gratitude in our hearts. Some of the happiest times are when encounter the unexpected. We look at each other and marvel at our luck, and good luck seems to follow us wherever we go. We love going to villages and meeting new people to learn about their culture. We have open hearts and open minds. When we visit countries, we are at times ignorant of many things, including the language and how to accomplish everyday tasks, so we become eager students. There are kind people all over this world who are willing to help, when we have questions. And the smile is the same in all languages!

Some people hate airports, however, I love them. They are my happy place. For me, there’s hardly a better place to people-watch. Scan the crowds at an airport, especially if it’s international, and you’re bound to see many races, nationalities, and social classes. I like the sounds of baggage wheels clacking on the moving sidewalk and my passport being stamped. Those are comforting reminders that I am either going somewhere new and exciting or that I’m almost home. The tired and hectic moments of getting to the appropriate gate and/or retrieving luggage is the small price we pay for adventure.

The best part about airports lies in what they symbolize. Airports are the bookends of a trip: arrivals and departures; hellos and goodbyes. We start in one city and end in another hundreds or thousand miles away. We leave our familiar surroundings and step into foreign lands and when we arrive back home from our journey, we are never the same as when we left.

And the emotions at an airport… you’ve got the whole range. You want to see human emotion at its most sentimental and raw? Watch loved ones bid farewell after pulling their suitcase from the trunk of the car; watch families reunite at Arrivals. Emotions converge on each other. The pain of goodbyes are mixed with anticipation and excitement. Sometimes, there are smiles and sometimes, tears that hurriedly get brushed away. (Parts of the two above paragraphs are copied and rewritten from Alex Brueckner and the Thought Catalog - as parts of the musing also applies to me.)

I love the following quote by Sarah Frances Brown: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So, throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”