Travel is a practice in serving the better good—it’s medicine for us, the earth, and our society.

We’re different people when we travel. More open and eccentric, we care less about the opinions of others, and as a side effect, we invite new experiences into our field that serve as stepping stones toward our highest self.

However satisfying or rewarding our lives are, they operate on the same feedback loops.

The same reward systems and cycles govern our daily choices. Our habits are so subconsciously ingrained—we are not even aware of their existence. As humans, we are meant to be ever evolving. We have been gifted consciousness, yet most of us operate from our subconscious—the programming that was instilled before we had the ability to make a choice.

Travel is medicine because the experience itself enriches our lives, but the residual effects are where the magic lies.

Travel lets us break out of routine; it gently forces us to break the habits that make up the self. It softly helps rewrite the programming that contributes to blocks in our lives.

It’s not the week to New York, or all the all-inclusive in Mexico. It’s not with the travel that reinforces our regular life, cycles, and habits—where time is spent with people who are exactly like us. It’s the travel where you get to know another culture. Where you communicate through eyes, music, and kindness because you don’t speak the same language. It’s the travel where you learn common phrases to show respect to the people of that country, where you say thank-you in a gesture because you can’t show your appreciation through language.

It’s the travel where you interact with people, who on the surface, are nothing like you. The kind of travel that takes you out of your comfort zone—that’s where the medicine hides.

This type of travel lets a glimpse of light in. A seed gets planted.

Maybe it’s noticed instantly, or maybe it germinates for years until you’re ready for it to bloom—either way, the experiences had in this kind of travel last a lifetime and lead to subtle changes in our everyday lives. The caveat is: travel never gives you want you want. Like all great teachers, it gives you what you need.

Let me explain with a story:

I came to Mexico last year in hopes of learning about alternative medicine. Through expanders in my own life, I became fascinated with the traditional healers of Mexico. I intended to come down here to see what I could bring back to my renegade nutrition practice. I came eager, open, and ready to learn.

During my time in Mexico, I was introduced to the energy medicine of the Mayans, to Toltec wisdom, to healers who brought to the surface a lot of things I needed to heal from, and to other travelers who were on a similar quest, who I can now recognize as teachers as well.

But I learned nothing that I could take back to use with others. I learned nothing practical. Instead I learned of my shadow, of all my flaws, of all the areas I needed to heal. I left Mexico feeling defeated, like I failed at what I came here to do. I had equal amounts of fun and trying times, but my medicine quest turned into a backpacking trip.

I came back to Canada broken. I stepped off the airplane in Vancouver with every insecurity I’ve ever had in my field of awareness, going back to the same job I’d quit five months earlier, with my heart in pieces and utterly confused about my purpose. I felt like I was living in a sims reality—watching a bunch of robots carry out their existence, me included. The months that followed were bleak. I liked the life I had before Mexico, where I was unaware and full of hope and excitement. Travel did not appear to be medicine for me.

But I worked through it, I let the feelings come up and I made the choice to learn from it all. A few months after returning home, life started to fall into place. Some might call the people who appeared and the events that transpired luck, but I know the lessons I learned from my travels in Mexico allowed space for these things to show up.

I wasn’t ready for what I was calling in when I embarked on my medicine journey, but the people and experiences that Mexico gifted me were the catalysts, preparing me for what I desired.

I sit here, a year later, writing this from a café on the beach in Mexico. The universe or fate—something beyond me—rerouted my plans and brought me back here. The events that have taken place and the people I’ve met in Mexico this time around are beyond anything I could have ever imagined. The universe is hand delivering me the most brilliant minds and amazing souls to learn from. The opportunities to learn about medicine are showing up in the strangest of ways, in the same places I had looked for them before with no success.

You don’t need a medicine quest; you don’t need a question.

All you need is the courage to go somewhere new, with an open heart and a fluid mind and know that travel will reveal to you what you need. It will answer questions you didn’t know you had and it will either subtly or forcefully send you on your way to what you are destined to become.

The thing is, travel helps us let our guard down. It gives us more choices—where we stay, what city we go to, for how many days, where to eat, who to talk to, and who to establish relationships with. Everything is foreign, nothing familiar, so there is no bias. It creates new neural pathways, it overrides habitual programming, and when we get out of these loops, logic dissipates.

Travel is an exercise in intuition; we tap into our ability to make decisions from “vibes”—we tune into the energetics that, on the most basic level, is what this world is made up of. And this is where healing happens, where the light and space come from to make changes in our lives—we become kinder, closer to our purpose, and we help ourselves heal so we can be part of the healing of this planet.

My experience has led me to ponder the questions, “how many of us are not living up to our full potential because we’re stuck in the same patterns and habits?” and, “how many of us are blocking magical experiences because we are not aware of what we need to heal?” I believe there are many ways to undo our programming, but for me, travel is without a doubt the most effective and effortless.

There’s no formula to travel. The people, places, and experiences simply meet us where we’re at.

Personally, each trip has been a catalyst for healing and a beacon of clarity. Of all the travel advice I can give, it’s to be open, to allow. After all, medicine works in the most mysterious of ways.