how to ruin a vacation — and then learn to love them

a very warm welcome to areas — i used to avoid

i never liked vacations — i treated them like a crime scene for years i didn’t just skip vacations — i sabotaged them like some undercover agent on a mission to make sure nobody enjoyed themselves. if i was miserable — so was everyone else team spirit, just… the dark edition my official excuse was bulletproof (in my head) why spend thousands on something you can’t keep like buying a cake you’re not allowed to eat but the truth had nothing to do with logic. it was one belief, wrapped in a hundred fears the belief that i wasn’t good enough — and not right, somehow — for the world outside my comfort zone. so i collected fears like souvenirsafraid i’d sound stupid speaking another languageafraid i’d pack my suitcase wrongafraid i’d get lost or robbedafraid i’d make a mistake at the airport and be called out in front of everyoneafraid of streets i didn’t knowafraid of situations i couldn’t controlit didn’t matter what it was — if it was unfamiliar, i was sure i’d fail at it there was even a time when parts of my own city felt like foreign territory i’d stick to familiar blocks like they were safe zones crossing an unfamiliar street felt like stepping somewhere i didn’t belong leaving the country? final boss fight, no weapons. fear changes when you finally face it for what it is and when i understood that all these fears came from the same place — the lie that i wasn’t enough — something shifted slowly, i stepped further out and the map blew wide open. i liked strange cities — supermarkets where every package looked better than anything in germany (i still don’t know why my country can’t design a decent cereal box) airports that felt like portals and menus i could barely read. i also learned i’m not a “beach for a week” kind of traveler — you won’t catch me locked in a resort. i’d rather wander from café to café — wine to wine — with my camera in hand, stitching the day together. turns out i was never anti-travel i was just convinced i didn’t belong in it. and now?i’ve been to places i once avoided on principle with people who made the trip better than the destination and i’m grateful for all of it — even the detours because somewhere along the way, i stopped believing i wasn’t enough. fun fact about the trip in these photos — we spent one full day locked in the hotel room not for the good reason — bad pizza and salad connect the dots