Everyone I know who has traveled to a foreign country comes back home and says the same three words: “Travel changed me”. I never fully understood what that meant until last spring, when I took nothing but a small suitcase to Italy and traveled through six different cities, alone.
This nine day, six city trip was my second time traveling alone, and my second time ever outside of the United States. As I boarded the plane, I remember feeling excited, a little anxious, and an overwhelming sense of hope and wonder about the memories I would make, people I would meet, and pictures of Italy I had seen for years before coming to life in front of me.
About a third of the way through my flight, I began to talk to the gentlemen next to me and the flight attendant about our reasons for travel and how many countries we had been to previously. When I told them I was traveling alone and this was my first time in a non-English speaking country, I found myself getting the same reaction that many of my friends had also relayed before my trip: “How can you travel by yourself? You’re too young”, “You are so brave”, and my personal favorite “You are going to get cornered in a store and robbed if you don’t watch out”.
I took a minute to think about everything they were saying to me, and came to an important realization- you cannot live your life in fear of the unknown or wait for the perfect moment to do something you have always wanted to do as that moment may very well never come. If you want to go to a concert, go to the movies, or go to a foreign country and your loved one’s schedule does not line up with yours, go alone! Life is too short.
Because of this mentality, learned more about myself in nine days than I had in approximately three years. In my travels, I made friends with countless locals, and fellow travelers from America, Dubai, and Bulgaria. I met a local business owner in the outskirts of Rome whose Ristorante was ranked in the Lonely Planet travel guidebook of Rome. (He proceeded to tell my new friend and I the entire history of meatballs.) I engaged commuters going from Pisa to Milan and met a wonderful woman who was in charge of an mainstream Italian beer company’s supply chain and we compared notes for hours on how businesses function in Italy vs. the United States. At the Papal Audience in Rome, I was blessed by Pope Francis himself and witnessed the coming together of martial arts athletes from North and South Korea.
None of the experiences I had would have been possible if I listened to voices of fear. Expanding my horizons not only gave me a massive appreciation for a country and culture very different from my own, but grew me as a business professional and person.
Sarah Pietrowicz 