The greatest gift of the past eight years of my life has been travel.

The world feels smaller, and I’m a better human for having sought out the front lines, embracing dissonances and ecstasies in hand.

I’m lucky to have experienced my fair share of Bourdain-approved romps, but travel needn’t be expensive or impenetrable. It can be a head-clearing day trip, or exploring different neighborhoods. Travel, of a sort, happens through the pages of a good book.

Travel, at its essence, is endeavoring to discover truths about ourselves outside of our echo chamber’s cozy confines.