I believe in travel. I really do.
Travel, when done right, makes your world bigger. It creates meaningful moments, funds experience-driven businesses that generate tangible and lasting value.
I believe in travel so much that I wrote a book about my experiences traveling — The Hours Before Dusk — and since 2018 have sent postcards to my pen pals in 62 different countries through Postcards from Jenna, where I ask local artists to illustrate their cities. I’m diving deep into the behind-the-scenes of travel and hospitality in my executive MBA at Les Roches Switzerland (one more month to go) to make good on my dream of starting a sustainable hotel / guesthouse brand that gives people what they’re actually looking for when traveling — inspiration, serenity, exploration — moments connecting with cool, creative people who love what they do.
If you’ve known me for a while you’ll see how this all fits together. :D
This morning Kathleen Rellihan’s piece in Afar called Are Travelers Ruining Travel? was an inspiring read showing the dark side of travel. What I liked about this piece was that it details what responsible tourism looks like through examples of all the cringe that it definitely shouldn’t be.
The travel problem reminds me of what a friend of mine once said about why he didn’t like photography. He said photography often takes too much from the subject, and approaches the subject on a surface-level only. There’s always more that meets the eye, he said.
Of course, I think there are so many examples where photography can be absolutely brilliant and give back so much more — but I think that his point is an interesting one.
If your phone didn’t double as a camera, how would you travel? Without Google, would you happily get lost somewhere? Would you approach someone local for advice?
To drive it home — to the point made in Kathleen’s article — Why are you traveling?
Here’s my honest why:
In 2018 I threw everything I owned into a storage unit in Brooklyn to live in different cities around the world for two and a half years. I did it because I was turning 30, and I wanted throw a catalyst in the mix that would help me grow into the person I wanted to be, which looked like leaning deeply into my curiosity and putting myself into a headspace and literal physical space that would help me appreciate the small moments in life and steer as far away as I could from the if-this-then-that mentality / trap that I saw a lot of my friends falling into. I had always had a map on my wall, a love of people and cultures, art and differences. I wanted to be directly influenced by things I didn’t know, every day. I spent about 3-4 months in each city and lived like a local in each place so that I could really get to know it.
That two and a half year period fundamentally restructured me as a human.
I opened pandora’s box and am now broken in the absolute best kind of way.
I wish this feeling upon everyone — regardless of how it’s arrived at. •
Love,
Jenna
P.S. As always, here to chat about this in our discord group. I love the amazing slow burn of awesome people and chatter that’s in there rn. Be sure to intro yourself if it’s your first time in.