Deep Within

It's been years since I started a travel routine. I was always amazed by the differences among countries, particularly in regards to architecture, nature, and, mainly, culture, which is directly shaped by people's behavior. Even though nowadays you can barely find a product or a meal which is only produced in one specific place, still amuses me that people's attitudes and common sense build a distinct society. I felt it would be a loss to keep all this amusement to myself, so I decided to share it so that more people could feel the way I did and be motivated to travel more, or actually, explore more. You can learn so much just from entering a restaurant in the city center of Rome, or just by talking to this Japanese man who's walking around with his family. I wanted people to see all of that and to experience how others view life from different perspectives. Perspective changes everything.

I was spending a couple of months in Europe, when I decided to start publishing pictures online on this unpopular blog, always accompanied by a small text that described the places I visited, usually mentioning historical facts about them. This way, my close friends and family could easily access whenever they felt like, and see what I was seeing - through my eyes and words. I held onto the idea for the following years, exploring different ways and platforms. At times, I wanted more people to be able to see how wonderful it could be to be abroad, or even in another region of your own country, so I was constantly looking for ways to show my adventures to people, until it was not so convenient anymore due to the time I normally spent preparing all the content to publish. Sometimes I could share things more often, while other times, I completely stopped due to a lack of motivation and time—also known as “not my priority. More recently, I came up with the idea of alinemap.com, which you can read as "a line map" - in the sense that it should serve as a guide for anyone who wants to know more about the world. Having my own website makes it easier to share whatever I feel like sharing and following the structure that better fits its content. Here you can find some tips for trips and games, as well as global curiosities - which is probably my favorite section.

Part 1

How it started

Part 2

It became an addiction, I suppose

Traveling became an addiction, and I turned it into my priority. Every cent I could save was dedicated to tickets and hotel rooms. Soon, I began hearing comments from all kinds of people - family, friends and even strangers - regarding my routine and the motivations for keeping it going. Since people have different habits and ways of viewing life, I received different kind of comments, from "That's amazing! Keep doing that and enjoy!", "I admire your courage for traveling around the globe alone", to "You should save money for buying a house instead", and "You are doing that because you are escaping from something back home, aren't you?". This is something that always happens and will continue to happen every time you decide to change something in your life. The truth is, people will always express their thoughts based on their own perspectives, and that is fine. I continued pursuing what I believed it was the best choice for me at the moment, and I do not regret it. Sometimes, this is not so easy, especially when it comes from those close to you. 

Not long ago, I decided to write this memoir, after taking a look inside myself and realizing that no matter where I went, my insecurities and all the other emotions were always there. That may sound quite obvious, of course, but sometimes you just do not realize that so easily. I can say that especially in the beginning of a traveling journey, you are always visiting new places and meeting new people, even the challenges you encounter half-way are exciting and turn into funny stories to share with your friends later. However, there comes a moment when these experiences become ordinary, and so you start looking inward again, as if you were back in your daily routine, examining how you truly feel without these new situations masking your emotions. I understood that no matter whether I was in Dubai swimming in the tallest swimming pool in the world, at a famous party in Barcelona, or walking around the Central Park in New York... it was always about myself. The amount of fun I could have, or the way I perceived those places always depended on how I was feeling about myself, and how healthy my mind was.