Munich, 24th June 2016 After 8 long years, I finally finished high school. I feel relieved, I feel happy, I feel scared. What's going to happen next? Which major should I choose for studying? What am I actually passionate about? These questions start to fill my head, and my future feels uncertain for the first time in my life. I decide to take a year off to find some answers to those questions. I decide to travel. In the next 12 months, I travel to 11 different countries all around the globe. Southeast Asia, Australia, Canada and Alaska. I start to meet new people, experience different cultures and explore unknown places. Everything seems new to me, and no day is like the one before. I run, I drive, I laugh, I dive, I dance, I smile, I learn and I fly. I feel free in a way that I never felt before, and a transformation is starting to happen within myself. With every conversation and every challenge, I get to know myself a little bit better. I buy a camera and start to get into photography, I practice every single day and I feel super passionate about it. After one year, my journey comes to an end. I don't feel the same, think the same or look the same as before.

I'm a different person. I see the world from a new perspective, and I feel excited about the future. I start to get more into filmmaking, do several internships and land my first job, to which I work for one and a half years. I feel happy and I have a sense of direction in my life. I can say that, through travelling, I found some answers to the questions of the 18-year-old me. And even years after returning, I still believe that those experiences made me the person I am today. Travelling changed my life, and because of that, I want to show all of you guys out there what makes it so special, and what you can learn from it. Disclaimer. This video is not about business trips, vacations, nor travel influencers. This is about the real kind of travelling, where you go on adventures, try out new things, and immerse yourself in new cultures. Alright? Let's get started then. While you're travelling, you don't really have any responsabilities besides yourself. I mean, the only things which you need to take care of are food and a place to sleep, so that's not that difficult, right? This means you don't have any obligations, and you don't have any expectations from other people, which gives you kind of like a mental freedom that you can rarely find in this modern world, and to be honest, it makes you really feel like a kid again. You don't worry about yesterday or tomorrow, and every day is a new adventure. You are spontaneous about the things you do and you really just do whatever you feel like, no matter if it's showering under the highest waterfall in Indonesia, playing with cute little puppies or kittens, messing around with the local kids, dancing with a praying mantis, or pretending to be Superman. You get curious again, and you just start to be excited about the little things in life. I'd say travelling is like a firework of emotions, and there are just so many different things that spark your interest, that it feels like time is flying by, just as it did in your childhood. We all live in our own little bubbles. No matter if you live in New York City, in Munich, or in a small Indonesian village, every place in this world has its own set of rules, and standards, and values, and beliefs, a perception of what it means to live a good life. There are specific guidelines, like how you should eat, dress or behave, and there's a specific mentality that you should follow too if you don't want to be an outsider. Travelling forces you to escape that bubble.

When I was in Southeast Asia, I did a lot of hitchhiking and Couchsurfing. For all of you who don't know, Couchsurfing is an app that lets you connect with locals, so you can sleep at their homes, and you can travel together with them. And yeah, I did a lot of that. It's not only a cheap way to travel, but you also learn the most about the country, you really experience new cultures instead of just reading about them in books or watching documentaries. You eat their food, see how they live, learn about their work, witness what they believe in, and get an overall inside into their perspective on life. Yep, this guy is really fanning me, and everybody was staring at me, probably because I was the first guy to visit this town. When you walk through the streets and you see people have absolutely nothing, but still, they are so happy and they always have a smile on their faces, then you really start to rethink your values. Like, "why do I always get so mad about those things?", and "why can I really have enough of anything?" Yeah, you just really see a change in your mindset, or at least, I did. F*ck. Shit, okay. Let's hope it's going to stay now. Overall, travelling widens your horizon and you start to see the world in its entirety, instead of just your small bubble. "The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page". Even though this quote sounds cheesy as hell, it sums up the point I'm trying to make pretty well. Travelling gives you the perfect conditions to discover your true self. You have to be minimalistic, because you can only take a few things with you in your backpack, and that teaches you what things you really need to have in your life. Another point is, nobody knows you, so nobody judges your character or your look, and everybody just takes you as you come, because they don't know what you've been like before. I can speak from experience at that point, because nobody seemed to care about my weird hairstyle, and I think if I had just stayed home, I wouldn't have even tried to grow my hair as long as that, because I would have just been scared that people could judge me for it. So you can just really be yourself, and you don't have to put on any filters to make yourself look good for other people, because they just know you this way.

You meet new people all the time, and you have deep conversations about topics that matter to you. I feel like, back at home, 80% of the conversations are about superficial topics, but while travelling, everybody is on the same journey, where they just want to discover new things about themselves, and everybody wants to learn from each other. Another thing that comes with travelling is time. You have a lot of time to think and make healthy decisions. Probably, the most important point is that travelling forces you to get out of your comfort zone, and you have to face a lot of challenges along the way, which a lot of times isn't really fun. I mean, it sucks if you have a flat tire, or if it starts to rain while you're on your motorbike, but these are the situations where you learn the most about yourself. You see how you react in those situations, and you also reflect on yourself, how you can improve to handle those situations better the next time. So, all of these extraordinary conditions that I just mentioned, in combination with point 1 and 2, give you a freedom of mind while pushing you to the edge. And believe me, this is the best environment to discover your true self. With all these experiences, you will build a strong set of values which you can live by. You'll discover what's important to you, what drives you, which people you want to spend time with, and what it takes for you to live a happy life.

Today, at the age of 22, I already traveled to 28 countries around the world, even though none of the other trips were really comparable to my trip after graduating. Obviously, it's amazing to see all of these stunning landscapes, and sometimes to grab a drink and to go partying, but for me, the coolest thing is to see yourself changing, to see yourself evolving, and I think every one of us should at least do it once in their life. I know that, due to the current situation with Coronavirus, right now it's probably the worst time to travel, and probably some of you guys already had to cancel your trips, but don't be mad about it, because in the upcoming years there will still be time for you to do it. Okay, so I guess that's the end of the video. I hope I could share my passion for travelling with some of you guys out there, and motivate you to do the same. Let me know if you want me to make a video about some other aspects of travelling in the comments. Feel free to subscribe and turn on notifications if you don't want to miss out on any of the upcoming videos. And yeah, I hope you guys all have a great day! See you soon, bye!