Dear reader,
If you’ve been feeling called to a destination or experience, allow me to offer three words of advice: book the trip.
I may be biased because I work in travel, but the value of picking yourself up and transporting yourself outside of your daily bubble cannot be overstated.
Travel allows you to gain perspective, find inner clarity, and mark new beginnings. I speak from experience since travel has completely changed my life. Some of you may know my story from my first memoir, 12 Trips in 12 Months, where I marked a milestone birthday with a year of adventure that led to a career change from law to travel writing full-time.
All You Need Is Flights begins on another milestone birthday, this time turning thirty-five on a Mediterranean cruise, fully hosted as a media guest, with my boyfriend of two years attending as my plus-one. Things take a turn for the worse when he dumps me on my birthday, the same day my Facebook account is hacked while logged in to the cruise Wi-Fi (learn from my mistake and always use a VPN, I beg!).
Once again, I turned to travel and found healing through meaningful and magical experiences around the world. I stood amongst the Moai of Rapa Nui (Easter Island), chased fairies at the Isle of Skye in Scotland, and saw a newborn baby gorilla while trekking in the mountains of Rwanda. The book touches on themes of home, gratitude, and health.
You don’t need to go halfway around the world to have a transformative experience. One of my trips was to the Fringe Festival in Rochester, NY, a buffet of events for story and theater lovers. The city also has the largest lilac festival in North America and was on the path of totality for the recent solar eclipse. There is no such thing as a boring place when you approach it with the excitement of learning something new.
Worried about traveling alone? I can confidently say that if you already live alone in the US, you’re more than qualified.
You don’t need to know what you’ll find when you get there. You just need to book the flight first and figure out the rest later.
Jen Ruiz is a lawyer turned full-time travel writer and content creator. She is a bestselling author, TEDx speaker, and national award-winning travel journalist. She has been featured in The Washington Post, Forbes, and AFAR and named a Top Latina Travel Expert by Mitú and The Points Guy. She is one of the writers of the Fodor’s Travel guidebook to Puerto Rico and Lonely Planet guidebook to Panama. Jen is the solo female traveler behind Jen on a Jet Plane.
