I am two weeks out from another grand adventure (again with GAdventures). This time – Spain, Portugal and Morocco! (more regular updates will be posted on my instagram!)

As I start thinking about this trip, I’ve found myself looking back on my many journeys—through the photos, passport stamps, moments and memories I’ve collected over the years.

I’m still frequently met with “aren’t you scared to go alone?”.

While I do still get pre-trip nerves; I’ve travelled to 35 countries, mostly on my own, and somewhere along the way – I’ve become very comfortable leaning into solo travel.

I started thinking about what all of those places have actually left with me. The level of chill that I operate with in my adventures is an accumulation of experiences and moments that made me this way.

How better to share than to go through my memory bank of the cultural collisions, the moments of uncertainty, and when things didn’t go as planned – but it all worked out.

I always come home with small treasures and an abundance of photos, but I also come home a little different in who I am every time. Sometimes it’s with a big, life-changing realization. Other times it’s something small—enjoying slower moments, a willingness to get a little lost, an appreciation for a good system (or dread of a bad one!), or a reminder that I don’t actually have to fill every minute of my day.

In this series, I will go through 35 little lessons I’ve collected from travelling the world—and the things I’m still carrying with me. Moments reflected on from my experience and exposure to new countries and cultures.

Some are profound. Some are practical. And some are lessons I’ve had to learn more than once. While the lessons are not in any particular order, the countries are (in order of my travels).

#1. You don’t have to go far to feel far away.

United States

My first international trip took me to Midland, Texas for work training. It was my first time at a border crossing and the first time my boots hit soil of another nation.

Before I left, I remember wondering if everything would feel unfamiliar. I was travelling somewhere outside of Canada for the first time, and even though I knew the U.S. wasn’t really a world away, it still felt like I was heading somewhere  different.

Then, as we came in for landing, I looked out the window and saw pump jacks stretching across the landscape. It was oddly familiar.

Edmonton (my home) has a similar view—oil and gas infrastructure appearing in the landscape as you come and go from the air. And throughout that first trip, I kept finding little moments exactly like that. Things that felt remarkably familiar, mixed with just enough differences to remind me I wasn’t at home.

I remember being told to leave my shoes on when entering someone’s house, which felt completely backwards to how I was raised.

Teg’s Tip:  Being asked to keep my shoes on was my first experience with a cultural collision—and I still don’t know if I handled it correctly. I took my shoes off. Now I understand, follow the lead of your hosts when in their space. Your way, is not always the right way.

Or sitting in a local sports bar during NHL playoffs and realizing there wasn’t a single game on. College sports took over every TV. (huh!)

Tiny things. Nothing particularly profound. But they were the moments that made me realize that travelling doesn’t necessarily mean stepping into a world completely unlike your own.

Sometimes, you just have to go far enough to notice both what you have in common and what makes a place different.

That first trip taught me something I’ve carried into every trip since: You don’t have to go far to feel far away.

Sometimes, a difference in accents, customs, or a slightly different version of something familiar is enough to remind you that you’re somewhere new.

And sometimes, that’s all the adventure you need to get started.

#2. Sometimes the places with less give you more.

Cuba

Cuba was my first trip outside of North America. I went over the holiday season with my parents and one of my brothers. We might refer to this as the trip that started it all – my first big adventure out of Canada at 26 years old.

Yep, I was not someone who collected passport stamps through my childhood or teenage years. All moments and memories have been collected in my adult life (so for those thinking it’s too late, it never is!).

My parents had travelled to Cuba before and had made some local friends, so our experience looked a little different than the typical resort vacation. We spent time exploring the island—from the hustle and bustle of Havana to Cienfuegos and Trinidad—but one of the moments I remember most happened in a much quieter place.

Christmas Day, in a local home in Matanzas.

We had brought gifts for the children and medicine for some of the older members of the family. In return, our hosts welcomed us into their home, helped arrange transportation and prepared a full feast of seafood and authentic Cuban food.

The family had traveled for days and gathered from different parts of the island, and somehow, in the middle of all of it, we became part of their Christmas festivities.

There was one tiny moment that has stayed with me all these years.

After the gifts were opened, I watched someone carefully fold and save the wrapping paper.

Not throw it away. Not toss it into a pile of Christmas garbage. Fold it. Smooth it out. Save it for another celebration.

I don’t remember what was inside the gifts (other than the beloved LEGO). I don’t remember everything we ate. I don’t remember every conversation that happened around that table.

But I remember that wrapping paper.

It was such a small thing, but it made me think differently about what we consider valuable.

We had arrived as international guests, carrying things we hoped would be useful. They welcomed us into their home, shared what they had, fed us, included us in their family celebration and gave us an experience that money couldn’t have bought.

That day taught me that abundance isn’t always about how much you have.

Sometimes it’s about how willing you are to share what you do have.

And sometimes, the places with less give you more—not necessarily in things, but in  connection and community, kindness, generosity and perspective.

That Christmas in Matanzas was one of the first times I understood that the most meaningful part of travel isn’t always what you see. Sometimes, it’s who lets you in, who invites you to the table.

#3. You can’t control the weather – or the trip.

Iceland

Iceland was never supposed to be the destination. It was a stop along the way to the UK—a long layover that gave me one short window to see what I could.

I remember having a choice to make: stay inside the terminal and wait for my next flight, or be brave enough to leave the airport, put my backpack in storage and see what I could find in Iceland for a single day.

So I went. And it poured rain.

Not the instagram-worthy Icelandic adventure I had imagined. Just relentless rain and a very limited amount of time.

But I’d already made the decision to leave the airport. I made my way into Reykjavík, found a locker for my bag at a bus stop and bought a hop-on hop-off bus ticket. It wasn’t exactly an elaborate itinerary, but it gave me a way to see the city highlights from a covered bus and the flexibility to get off and explore when the rain eventually stopped.

And somehow, it worked. I saw Reykjavík. I got out into Iceland. I made something of the few hours I had rather than watching a clock in an airport terminal.

While I don’t think my Iceland adventures are done. It’s somewhere I want to return to someday, when I have more than a few hours and hopefully a little less rain.

But that one very wet day taught me something I’ve carried far beyond travel: You can’t control the weather. You can only decide what you do when it rains.

Plans change. Things don’t go the way you imagined. Sometimes the circumstances are completely outside your control.

Teg’s Tip: Viator is one of my preferred day tour platforms to day tours and excursion tickets.

You can sit in the airport and be disappointed that the day wasn’t what you wanted. Or you can put on your raincoat and go see what you can find.

I’ve probably had to remind myself of that lesson more times than I’d like to admit. And I’m sure Iceland won’t be the last place to remind me.

Travel and adventure is often what you make of your time and circumstances.

Starting this series I thought “what learnings have I carried home with me?” and will the moments in time remain strong enough in my memory to draw lessons and gratitude from them still? Simply, yes. And I hope they make others take the jump into the unknowns of travel.

Sometimes the lessons are in moments found in the familiar things that suddenly feel a little different or being met with a low level of discomfort. Sometimes they’re sitting around a table with people who welcomed you into their home. And sometimes they’re wearing a raincoat in a new city because the weather didn’t get the memo about your arrival.

In this series, there are still many more countries for me to reflect on—and a lot more lessons. And if these first few have taught me anything, it’s that the best souvenirs aren’t always the ones you can put in your suitcase.

They’re the ones you carry with you long after you come home. Fellow travellers, what have you carried home?

Fun that I was able to return to Cuba 10 years later – in 2025 to attend my first quinceanera in a friends home, with many days of poor weather. With all the travel experience I’ve collected along the way – it was a week filled with lots of love, laughter and community instead of stressing over what I could not control.