Travel, for me, is like looking at a place through binoculars. You see everything close enough, yet you have a certain objective distance from it.

It has its pros and cons though. You get to see only what you want to see, and the first impression is usually the one that sticks with you.

And that happens both ways. The way we judge a place and the people there – and vice versa, the way the people there judge us.

Yet, these first impressions rarely capture the essence. To truly know a place, one has to spend a considerable amount of time and indulge in the mundane and daily activities. And somehow, that feels true about people too.

Except for those rare occasions when you meet someone while you are exploring a place, spend just a short time chatting over a cup of coffee or during a shared tour, and the connection is so easy that it seems like it’s from a different lifetime.

Those are some of my favourite moments of travel. It’s like pieces of me floating in different parts of the world, and when I travel, I get to meet them and connect with them.

That’s why I like to think of myself more as a wanderer than a traveller. Wandering to meet these different parts of myself and then fully rejoicing in that discovery and connection.

I always get curious glances and curious questions from people when they meet me for the first time. Some genuinely wanting to know me, some trying to put me in a box, and some just trying to understand the unfamiliar.

Most people ask me the same kind of questions, and my answers are also the same most of the time, depending on how much I want to share.

But then, every once in a rare while, I meet someone who asks me a different question – a question to which I don’t have an immediate, set reply. I stop, I ponder, I smile and then I answer.

I like these questions because they make me think about myself a bit more deeply; they make me reflect; they make me pause.

Those are the times when I remember my training as a documentary filmmaker, and my boss had told me something that’s still stuck in my mind: If you want interesting answers, then ask interesting questions.

These interesting questions and answers become fodder for thought and for my writing.

I write with gusto when I travel. That’s another reason why I love to travel. Travel sparks creativity for me. There is an overflow of it. Thoughts and poetry are constantly weaving in my head. And it nourishes my soul.

There is something about being in a new place, out of my comfort zone – I experience a certain level of closeness with myself, especially when I travel solo. It reveals a side of me hidden beneath the layers of familiarity.

It allows me to ruminate; pick the thoughts I like, and discard the ones I don’t.

It allows me to fall in love with myself just a little bit more, and I bring back pieces of myself I hadn’t met before.

Read more such personal essays here.