What I Mean When I Say Wanderlust

We are the travel generation. And it’s so easy to be with social media these days. We see pretty, perfectly filtered pictures of girls on the beaches of Bali, soaking up the sun in Santorini, casually relaxing in Costa Rica. We envy them, want to be them. And for a lot of people this is what they think of when they think of wanderlust. They think it’s being jealous of those pretty pictures, and wishing that’s the life they could have.

But not me.

See, I don’t think that wanderlust is the idea of looking at what someone else is doing and wanting it. I think we’re born with wanderlust. We’re born with the need to explore and have adventures. And when you’re born with wanderlust, with the need for travel and exploration, there is constantly adventure in your hearts and something in your mind that just keeps repeating, “Go.”

And when I say I have wanderlust, it means I won’t be satisfied until I go.

I want to learn new things, see new things, fill my life with new things until my cup runs over and my mind is blown with all of this new.

I want to touch every grain of sand on every beach and swim in every ocean so I can tell you how different the waters are. I want to learn to say hello in every language and sleep under different skylines so I can tell you how different the stars are. I want to the hear the magic that I know is in the air that is never the same in two places. I want to get sunburnt and lost and find my way so that and the end of the day, I can tell you how wonderful being lost really is because it means you get to find your way back.

I want to never be committed to one place, one routine. I want to wake up with different sunrises and say goodnight to different moons. I want to find the magic, the mystery, the beauty in every difference.

When I say I have wanderlust, it means I just have to know what those differences, what those new things are. It means I’m never content if I’m not being a student of the world and paying attention because I know how much the world has to teach me. I mean that I need to have the answers, and I know that going is the only way to get them.

And when I say I have wanderlust, it means I want to share it.

So I go. I explore and I jump, I adventure and I get lost. I soak up all this knowledge, all these experiences, all of this magic. I learn and I take notes about all of this beauty and all of these incredible people, places and things. I make sure to drink in as much as I can so when I hear someone say, “What’s that like?” I can answer, “Let me tell you.”

I go and I go not only to satiate my wanderlust, but to help to fuel and feed yours too.

Because the beauty of wanderlust is that it is never ending. And the beauty of wanderlust is that we need each other to keep it. The beauty of wanderlust, is that it’s for all of us.

So when I say that I have wanderlust, it means I’ll never stop going.

And I hope you never stop too. Thought Catalog Logo Mark