A Wanderlust’s Search For Love

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This summer was the first time that I developed a relationship with traveling. Through my experiences abroad, I experienced the start of my journey to search for love.

Places are like people. You might ask, how can I personify something as large as a place, a city, a location? Well, bear with me. This is my theory.

Every single place that you travel to is different. We love some, we are disappointed by some, we miss some. Half the time we spend wondering if the perfect one is out there waiting for you and the other half the time we spend wondering if we’ve already met our match. We step off a plane in a new city feeling completely anonymous, yet it can be love at first sight. Every time you travel, you have the chance to meet your soul mate city.

When I think of my hometown, I think of it as my best friend. Growing up in a small suburban upstate New York town, I developed a relationship unlike any other. Hilton is a warm embrace, an uncontrollable laugh, somewhere to store all of my secrets. I can always return knowing that its arms will be extended, just waiting for me to burrow my face in the warm nooks and crannies. It’s the place that I can always return to and pick up right where I left off. It’s comfortable. Yet sometimes it’s just not enough for my adventurous heart.

When I think of New York City, I think of the bad boy that I chased after. We have great memories, but he is rebellious and I am shy. He is not my comfort zone, but I keep coming back for more. He is my heart’s desire but I always wonder if he’s really the right fit. We fight and we disagree and we butt heads but in the end, I am still just as infatuated as I was the first day I stepped foot in Manhattan. It’s my personal kryptonite, the place that can hold all of my emotions in the palm of its hand, the one I take for granted. And possibly the one that could get away.

And then I traveled to Rome and we had a great love affair. He had an old soul and I felt free. It was a new experience, falling into the arms of a city so unlike any that I’d ever been before. Together we rode out the month, exploring and experiencing everything together. Every night I questioned whether I was living inside of a dream. I felt intoxicated by happiness, guilty for the adventures that I had the privilege to come across.

But like all great love affairs, it was fleeting. At the end of the month, while we had not grown tired of each other, I knew what was right. I got on a plane and left Rome behind, but I will keep the memories we had together with me forever.

And while one adventure is over, I am more pleased than ever before. The journey is just beginning! I will travel and meet all sorts of different, unique, and wonderful cities and someday I will find my perfect match. Until then I will learn and appreciate all that this world has to offer, all of the things that I still have yet to see. They call it the “travel bug” but I think it’s more than that. I have fallen in love with the chase of travel, the urge to move on forward.

Call me a romantic but for me, adventure awaits. And I can’t wait to find the place that I can give all my love.