Defining Moments around the World

Hi! I'm so excited to be guest posting on Found Love. Now What? today!  I've been an avid reader of Belinda's blog since the beginning and had the lovely chance to meet up with her in Dublin a couple weeks ago.  I felt like we could sit and talk for hours and I've added Wales to my long list of travel destinations in the coming years after seeing her gorgeous pictures of the area.

Anyways, I’m Casey from True Colours, a travel blog that encompasses my passion for seeing the world and documenting my trips and tips for everyone with a little wanderlust in their hearts!  I do a lot of traveling, both for work and for pleasure, and throughout each trip, I always come out the other end with a lesson, with something that stopped me in my tracks and taught me something important.  I've had some pretty defining moments around the world, moments that changed the course of my life, moments that took my breath away, and moments that changed me within my soul.  Travel has a way of teaching us in ways that perhaps nothing else can; it makes us look at our world and find within us the strength to find our own place within it. 

I've had the pleasure and opportunity to see many different places in the world and each of the places I've traveled has brought with it lessons, moments and memories.  Though a few destinations have stood out among the rest for various reasons, whether it be lessons I've learned, places I've fallen in love with, or locations that pull from my heritage, each of them has defined me in ways that sometimes I don't even realize until after I'm home.  Each of these places has defined me in different ways but at the end of the day, it has been the culmination of my travels that has shaped me into who I am and I know that as I continue to travel, our beautiful world will only continue to shape and change me and I look forward to that.

I spent a couple years living in Hawaii for work and during that time my husband, Nick, stayed at our home in Portland for a number of reasons.  Long story short, we did long distance for a while and it was a very trying time.  While Hawaii wasn't for me in the end, it is still a place that holds great meaning for me because it was my time there that gave me the much needed perspective I had been missing previously.  I woke up to this view everyday living there and while I was often in awe of the beauty of "Paradise," Hawaii showed me definitively that the life I wanted wasn't on the Islands, it was at home with my husband, in a place with rain and gray clouds.  And even though Hawaii might be paradise to some, I realized that it wasn't mine.

During my time in Hawaii, I was making regular trips to Seoul, South Korea for work.  My time in Seoul was eye opening and touched me deeply.  I fell in love with Korea, with traveling, with different cultures.  It was my time in Seoul that defined the traveler I have become.  Seoul was the first international destination I had traveled to since moving back to the States when I was 12 from the Middle East (more on that here if you're interested) and it was in Seoul that I spent a good deal of time soul-searching (pun intended).  The South Korean capital helped me find myself again and it was there that my whole life changed direction.

I just recently returned from Ireland in the last couple weeks and to say that Ireland was a defining place for me would be an understatement.  I'm very Irish, with close family still living there and my whole life I've heard stories about the country.  To see it finally with my own eyes, to breathe it in, to find myself in love with it changed me.  I saw my heritage, I felt it and I felt right at home, as cliche as that sounds.  Ireland for me was a new love, a place I always held within me but now it's really there, now it's in my soul.

After growing up in the Middle East, I desperately missed the Arab culture when we returned to the States.  It was my first trip back to a Muslim country when I visited Morocco a couple years ago that I felt a deep reminiscence for my Arab roots.  But perhaps the most defining moment for me in Morocco was having my hands done in Henna.  The woman that did it for me did one hand in the traditional Saudi designs and the other in the traditional Moroccan themes, which for me was such a beautiful reminder of who I am, a mix of cultures, a mix of countries, a mix of places all over the world.

And this list wouldn't be complete without my time in Paris as some of the most defining moments I've had while traveling.  If you follow my blog at all, you know I adore Paris.  The City of Lights for me is a place that I just "fit," that inspires me, that is my home away from home.  I try to make it to Paris at least once a year, but perhaps in all the trips there, the most defining was my first trip back as an adult with my husband on our honeymoon.  I watched him fall as in love with Paris as I did and together, we've found a place that will always be "our place."  

Traveling is a way to not only expand our horizons but a way to help our lives progress.  For me, I've experienced these and so many more moments around the world that have shaped the path of my life, that have shown me incredible experiences and in the end, have defined for me how small our world really is and that we really are all the same, searching for our place in this beautiful world we call home.