Even now, when I close my eyes, flashes of that pilgrimage return like scenes from a movie. It wasn't the Himalayas that first took my breath away. It was the road leading there. Inspired by The Road to Dharma documentary series, I found myself making the same pilgrimage to Kedarnath—one of India's four sacred sites, where the ancient Temple of Lord Shiva stands high in the Himalayas. Reaching it required a two-day journey from Rishikesh to Guptkashi, followed by an eight-hou

Some journeys test more than our legs. They test our trust. During our Kumano Kodo pilgrimage in Japan, our group of ten set out on the first day’s hike from Takijiri-oji to the small mountain village of Takahara.

High in the mountains of Nepal, we woke before dawn to make our way toward Poon Hill for sunrise.

People often ask me which country has been my favorite. It’s a question I never quite know how to answer. Every country carries its own atmosphere, its own rhythm, and its own way of revealing beauty. How do you compare the silence of the Himalayas to the warmth of Italy, or the elegance of Japan to the vastness of Mongolia?

As I was clearing out old papers in my office, I came across something I almost didn’t keep. A simple card. It was from a trip to New Zealand many years ago. At the end of that journey, the group handed it to me — a card filled with handwritten notes from each traveler.

Years ago, I once saw a postcard of a beautiful temple in Japan — the elegant vermilion pagoda of Seiganto-Ji standing quietly before the mountains, with the soft white ribbon of Nachi Falls flowing gently in the background.

The Seed That Became a Journey began long before I understood what it truly meant. When I first started the International Travel Lovers meetup, I wrote that my dream was to travel the world and visit all the sacred sites. At the time, I didn’t really know what “sacred sites” meant to me, but there must have been a seed already planted, quietly waiting to grow.