As the year comes to a close, I wanted to share the annual reflection prompts I’ve been returning to for several years now. They’ve helped me take stock of the past year, notice how I’ve grown, and gently orient myself toward what’s next. One unexpected bonus is revisiting old entries: seeing my reflections from 2022, 2023 remind me how much life can shift in a short time.

I often leave these reflections with a sense of gratitude. That felt especially true this year. Between a family emergency, a breakup, and moving back to Hong Kong— a city I hadn’t lived in since I was 14 — 2025 truly felt like the longest year for me yet. I staggered my way into the fall, just barely making it, and at times the shittier moments seemed to eclipse everything else.

This reflection practice helped me recognize and give myself credit for all the wins I had, both big or small: writing my book; publishing my book; founding an artist residency and running month-long programs in Berlin and Vietnam. It helped me see the full shape of the year: the highs and lows, the in-betweens, all the ways I’ve grown. More than anything, it gave me space to reflect on who I was this year, and who I want to be in 2026. I’d recommend this ritual to anyone looking to move into 2026 with a little more intention and care.

I’ve shared a copy of the reflection prompts here, along with a few excerpts below.

Sending lots of love and wishing everyone a beautiful New Year,
Kora

Prompts

I. Reflecting back on 2025

Describe the year in one sentence:

1. Review

Words to describe 2025:

Countries visited:

Number of books read:

Best book(s) I read this year:

Best movie(s):

Favourite country I visited:

Favourite new friend(s):

Coolest new experience(s):

Most intense week(s):

What am I most proud of creatively?

What am I most proud of professionally?

What am I most proud of personally:

What am I most proud of physically:

What do I regret?

2. Recap

Where did I achieve or succeed in my goals this year?

Where did I fall short?

Which goals became less important?

What experiments did I try? (e.g. no phone for 1 hour before bed)

What new skills did I develop? (e.g. saying no, cooking, etc.)

What new habits did I develop? (e.g. yoga, journaling, etc.)

What did I learn from this year?

What am I most grateful for?

What will I leave behind in 2025?

3. Reflect

What was the main theme of 2025?

Which moments left me feeling a sense of awe and wonder?

Which moments or situations did I embrace discomfort?

Which relationships nourished me this year? Who supported me?

II. Looking ahead to 2026

1. Goal setting + action

3 core desired feelings for 2026:

Which creative habits will you embrace?

What do you want to do for personal development?

Write down your 5 biggest goals for this year that you are GOING to achieve.

Where do you envision yourself at the end of this year? Write a specific scene - what are you doing, who are you with, how are you feeling? Be specific.

Write down 3 steps you can take for each of your 5 goals above that are actionable in the next few months.

2. Support system

Which principles are non-negotiable for next year?

With whom or where do you want to spend more time next year?

Which things will you cut from your daily habits? What will you no longer make time for? (e.g. social media, books you don’t enjoy, pleasing others)

What boundaries will you set with yourself and others?

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3. Order a copy of my book, the sea, the sky, the sun ♥

I wanted to write about a sunset.

It wasn’t just any sunset, though. It was a sunset in Lombok, Indonesia, orange-lacquered gold glittering against the Indian Ocean. and I wasn’t just sitting on the beach somewhere: I was in the water, my happy place, catching wave after wave as the sun rested her head against the jagged peaks of Gili Wayang behind us.

And I wasn’t there alone. Somewhere on the beach sat Taty, a friend I had met at my hostel the day before, a stranger at the breakfast table that had gradually — and still, quickly — turned into a friend as we crossed the island together on the back of my motorbike. As I paddled over each set, a part of me felt reassured by the knowledge of her presence, waiting for me on the shore. And a part of me wondered, too, at how you can get to know someone over the course of a day, sketch the outlines of a stranger, paint the color between the lines of that first impression from the moment their existence intertwines with yours.

I wanted to write about this sunset, and I rewrote the section over and over again, turning words like slipstreams and building paragraphs up only to deconstruct, rearrange, and destroy them again. I did this because for me the memory of that evening deserved more than just prose. It wasn’t just a memory: it was an atmosphere, an irreality, a dreamstate that wove together every thread of my senses and thought and mindscape. I wanted to capture it in all its rawness, beauty, and uncertainty. Words alone didn’t seem to suffice.

On my fifth rewrite I finally sat back and asked myself: what if I wasn’t just writing with words?

What if there were other ways I could capture, and convey, this moment?

2. Why my story needed more than prose

My year of backpacking was lived in colors, textures, and silences; my memories of it chronicled across photographs and journals alike. I traveled as a photographer: two cameras in my backpack at all times, one digital, one film. I traveled, too, as an archivist — an archivist of my mind. In the midst of one of the most introspective, transformative periods of my life, I filled notebook after notebook with loose thoughts, questions, and reflections from a 25-year-old boy who had left everything behind to chase a dream. Images and words: these were the languages I wielded to make sense of this odyssey of mine.

As I began writing the book that would become the sea, the sky, the sun, I realized I already had a treasure trove of archival memories I could weave into the memoir. I had hundreds and hundreds of images from the road, views and vignettes across five continents, burned into SD cards and rolls of 35mm film. I had my journals, too, which brought a direct look at the inner turbulence of my mind.

In writing, there’s a familiar rule-of-thumb: show, not tell. Instead of stating what’s happening — “it was sunset,” for example — writers try to evoke the scene through details: the way light glitters on the water, the golden wash of evening against the palms.

I wanted to take this idea further in my memoir. I didn’t want to simply explain, or even just show. I wanted my readers to feel. I could write paragraphs attempting to describe the vivid melancholy of staring out at the ocean in the middle of heartbreak, and how, in that very same moment, the evening sun carried a sense of hope and wonder about the world, a quiet reassurance that everything would be okay.

Or I could let other forms of storytelling bear some of that weight instead.

In my art practice, I’ve always been drawn to installation and sculpture — a concrete monolith built into the mountains of New Mexico, an immersive installation that sought to recreate the sight, sound, and smell of the sea. I’m drawn to these mediums because I believe their multi-dimensional, multi-sensory nature makes them incredibly effective vessels of meaning and emotion. It wasn’t until I began creating the sea, the sky, the sun that I finally understood what I had always felt through my art. Showing is better than telling, that we already know. But to immerse someone, to allow them to be, to feel, is a million times more powerful than that.

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3. What is a visual memoir?

A visual memoir is a personal story told through words and images. It strikes a fine balance between the two elements: it’s not a photobook or graphic novel; nor is it a traditional memoir with a few sparse images interspersed throughout. It’s a format where visuals and text share narrative authority — where visual images are as essential to meaning as words, and where the reader’s understanding of the story relies on the interplay of the two.

The visual memoir often requires the author to embody both the skills of a writer and visual artist. For this reason, it’s not a common medium, and mostly written by writer-photographers. The first example that comes to mind is Sally Mann’s Hold Sill (2015), which weaves the author’s photographs into a memoir on her life as an artist and mother. Another example is , who similarly weaves photography into Things Become Other Things (2023), a “walking memoir” through Japan and his past.

There’s a fine line between visual memoir and “memoir with some photos.” Patti Smith’s Just Kids sprinkles a polaroid across every few chapters, but does that make it a visual memoir? I would argue not: those images feel more like a supplement to the text, rather than a fellow narrative authority. The book could stand on Smith’s (incredible) prose alone.

If I had to put a number on it, I’d say a visual memoir is anywhere from 25-65% “visual.” the sea, the sky, the sun balances 80 pages of photography and journal fragments between 220 pages of prose. Craig Mod’s Things Become Other Things has 56 photographs in 220 pages of text. But it ultimately comes down to the feel of the book as a whole and not numbers alone.

4. Building a visual rhythm

the sea, the sky, the sun isn’t just a memoir interspersed with photographs and journal fragments. It’s a book where blank pages give readers space to breathe, where photographs speak what prose could not, and where journal fragments offer a glimpse into my mindscape and thoughts.

As I formed each chapter, I asked myself: were there any places where an image or journal entry could speak louder than prose? Where could I convey my story more effectively through other forms?

Visual languages are deeply intuitive, and it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly why I chose each image and its placement. But I can highlight a few recurring ways I used photographs throughout the memoir:

1. Capturing an atmosphere or emotion: a dash of sunflowers after a reflection on love. Stormwaters crashing against a cliff to illustrate an inner turbulence. A purple-red sunset in the midst of hurt.

2. Setting the mood through color tones: cooler, muted tones to show melancholy and introspection. Brightly lit, warm-toned photos in times of joy and exhilaration.

3. Supplementing themes discussed in text: in the Japan chapter, I discussed the country’s dueling natures of tradition and subversion, order and chaos — and paired the text with a series of side-by-side images illustrating these dualities.

4. Showcasing people and places: portraits of travelers and locals, landscapes that reflected the vistas I experienced.

5. Creating space and rhythm: full-bleed double-spreads where a single image captured the vastness and beauty of what I witnessed. Blank pages as a natural buffer that gave readers room to pause and breathe.

The journal fragments operated a little differently. They provided raw, unfiltered glimpses into my thoughts, often taking the shape of reflections that showed how I felt at that very moment in time. Other times, they allowed space for half-formed ideas or stories that didn’t quite fit into the book’s narrative, but still mattered: humorous moments from the road, or musings on life and happiness.

5. The visual memoir is a medium that demands to be experienced

Ultimately, the visual memoir is a medium that unfolds in multiple dimensions. It demands to be experienced. To write one requires a careful interplay of text, image, and space — and that, in turn, requires returning to the work again and again, reading every chapter and every sequence from start to finish. In doing so, the importance of visual rhythm becomes clear: the pacing created by images, fragments, and empty space working together to carry the story forward.

This is what I hope readers feel when they open the sea, the sky, the sun. It’s not just a story to be read, but a space to move through.

If this post intrigued you, the sea, the sky, the sun is available for purchase here. I’ll continue sharing more about my writing process and inspirations in upcoming posts.

👋 If you’d like to support my book journey, feel free to…

1. Like, share, and restack this post. Any engagement really does help :)

2. Follow my journey on Instagram @kunstlerroaming.

3. Order your copy of the sea, the sky, the sun ♥

** SELECTED FOR NOC’S FIRST NOC.TURNAL FEATURE
** “A stunning reflection on travel, purpose, and the search for self. Kora’s story reminds us that the most important journey is always inward.” — Wong How Man

“The world is large, but in us it is deep as the sea.”

So begins this journey by Kora Kwok, as he sets off across five continents in search of meaning, purpose, and connection.

At twenty-five, Kora had everything he thought he wanted: a beautiful life in Hawaii, a 6-figure salary, a promising career. But beneath everything, he felt an ache—the burning realization that achievement and fulfillment aren’t the same thing. So he packed a backpack and left it all behind, setting off with no plan but to explore the question of his true path.

In this soul-stirring, unflinchingly honest memoir, Kora chronicles his one-year journey across five continents—capturing the people, places, and moments that changed him along the way. Through heartbreak, hedonism, solitude and connection, Kora grapples with the existential search for meaning in your twenties, the gentle fragility of human connection, and the beautiful mess of growing up.

Told through lyrical prose, photography, and journal fragments, the sea, the sky, the sun invites readers to look inward, question the paths they’ve inherited, and follow the dreams that make them feel most alive.

the sea, the sky, the sun

Two years ago, I left Hawaii to follow a dream.

My friends thought I was crazy for leaving everything I had behind: a slow-paced life surrounded by people I loved, a prestigious career with a six-figure salary, a home in one of the most gorgeous places on earth. But the truth was, I felt deeply unfulfilled with where my life was at the time, stuck on a path that no longer spoke to me. Leaving was the only way I knew to answer the questions of who I was, and who I was meant to become.

I spent the following year backpacking across five continents, trying to make sense of myself and the world around me. This book chronicles the beautiful chaos of that time, capturing the people, places, and moments that changed me along the way. It grapples with themes that I think many of us have faced: the existential search for meaning in your twenties, the gentle fragility of human connection, the beautiful mess of growing up.

the sea, the sky, the sun is a physical record of that transformative year — a visual memoir weaving together photography, handwritten journal pages, and stories from the road. It is unflinchingly honest, occasionally hilarious, and painfully vulnerable at times. It will make you pause, linger on the small moments, and maybe see your own story in unexpected ways.

I designed the sea, the sky, the sun as an art object, not only to be read, but to be seen and felt. It is a clothbound hardcover printed on premium art paper, with 60+ pages of full-color photography and over 200 pages of prose and handwritten journal fragments. Every design detail was chosen with intention, and I can’t wait for you to hold it in your hands.

👉 Order your copy here: book.korakwok.com

Why I wrote this book

On paper, traveling the world was a dream come true. But the journey was also filled with moments of overwhelming doubt, long stretches of uncertainty about who I was to become.

Talking with friends, I realized I wasn’t the only one wrestling with questions around purpose, identity, and direction. Many of us in our 20s and 30s were experiencing the same anxieties around our futures, questioning the kind of life we wanted to live.

the sea, the sky, the sun is a book for dreamers and travelers. But it is also for anyone navigating a time of transition or questioning the life they’ve built — especially those in their 20s and 30s seeking clarity, meaning, and a deeper sense of self. I wrote it for anyone doing the hard, hard work of looking inwards and listening to what their life has to say — about who they are, what they want, and the kind of future that calls to them.

There are plenty of memoirs written decades later, watered down with hindsight. I wanted to do something different: to share my story as I lived it, with all the raw uncertainty and exhilaration of the here and now.

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🇭🇰 Hong Kong book launch on November 27 🎉

Hong Kong friends: I’ll be hosting a book launch event @ NOC Sheung Wan on Thursday November 27! Social starts at 6pm, followed by reading + q&a at 7pm. Feel free to drop by, say hello, and pick up a copy of the book!

Many of you have watched this book grow from a loose idea into something real. From the bottom of my heart: thank you for walking this road with me. It means the world to me that you’re here, and I’m unbelievably excited to share this book with you.

Love always,
Kora

👋 If you’d like to support my book journey, feel free to…

1. Like, share, and restack this post. Any engagement really does help :)

2. Order the sea, the sky, the sun here ❤️

3. Share my Instagram announcement post (~engage the algorithm~) ↓

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i finished the final version of my book a few days ago. like finished finished – sent off to the printers, to be rendered on ink and paper over the next 4 weeks.

it’s been a milestone over a year (!!) in the making, but when i closed my laptop for the night, ready to pass out after another long day of poring over the 300-page manuscript, from top to bottom—

i couldn’t sleep.

i suppose this is what happens when you finish a project. your mind is still buzzing (i hadn’t been so stressed since high school) from being on for months. so i lay there, my mind racing a million miles per minute, reflecting on some of the ways i choose to live my life these days – 2 years after leaving everything behind in hawaii, 1 year after backpacking across the world.

and as with anything written on the notes app at 5am, it came out pretty good. and so here we go:

1. stop performing for other people. just do the shit you want to do

the paths before you – they are scripts, and the truth is that people only stick to them because they appear familiar.

but in reality, everyone – literally everyone – is just figuring it out as they go along. a “stable” path does not shield you from the tides and turns of life: a crappy economy, sickness, family emergencies, loss. in fact, it does not really guarantee you anything.

who knows where the world will be in ten years? anything could happen – another pandemic, global warming, war, ai taking over everything. so why spend your one life living someone else’s idea of what it should look like?

an australian nurse – who spent years caring for the dying – listed the most common regret people had on their deathbeds:

“i wish i’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

you only get one chance to live your life. don’t wait until it’s too late.

2. choosing positivity is free

the only difference between a horrible day and a day that “could have gone better but hey we’re still here” is how you choose to see it.

life is a series of fortunate and unfortunate events. in between the spells of beauty, there will be the bad: people you love will leave. shit will happen. things will fall apart.

you can’t control everything that happens, but you can control how you respond. you can live under constant anxiety, with a grey cloud constantly looming over the horizon – or you can live with hope. with positivity. with light.

3. gratitude is a constant wellspring of happiness

my gratitude practice helped me see that happiness isn’t something you chase: it’s something you slow down and notice. because most of the time, it’s already here.

gratitude allow you to see how much you have to be grateful for – and it’s more than you know. even the simplest things we take for granted: sleeping with a roof over our heads. having enough to eat. the time to be perusing some idiot’s substack article in the middle of the day.

here’s how to get started: every morning, write down 3 things you’re grateful for. at night, write down 3 nice things that happened that day. don’t overthink it; “nice” can mean your coffee, a stranger’s smile, the way sunlight hit your wall.

4. select for kindness

surround yourself with people who are truly kind – the ones who treat everyone with respect, who show up, who give you a shoulder to cry on without even asking.

when we’re young, we tend to pick friends for their coolness, their looks, their aura. but as i’ve grown older, i’ve realized that kindness is the quality that matters most. because when the shitstorm of life comes your way, these are the people in your corner, helping you back up. friends that aren’t just here for the good times, but the bad, too.

before you select for coolness, artsiness, athleticism, or whatever qualities are important to you – select first for kindness.

5. go deep in nature

there’s something almost holy about being somewhere without cell service, without buildings, without any of the modern day technologies that are supposed to make our lives easier.

a friend once told me hiking is “being hugged by the mountains”; i’ve never heard a better description. being in nature reconnects us to the earth in an age where asphalt streets and concrete have all but severed our connection to the wildness around us.

what immersion in nature looks like is completely up to you. i find a different kind of calm between the ocean and the mountains: the ocean is where i go to escape, to clear my mind. the mountains are where i go to think, reflect, and face myself.

both remind me that i belong to a world that is vast and alive.

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6. trust your gut

intuition is the wisdom of your lived experience – accumulated over the course of every minute you’ve spent in this body on earth. when something is wrong, or going very right, your body senses the pattern and makes a instinctual judgement that precedes the beginnings of any rational thought.

your brain will attempt to rationalize your intuition, to fight against it. but learn to trust it: intuition is the most ancient language you know. and it is almost always right.

7. read books. travel. talk to strangers

to catch a glimpse of another person’s world – that is one of the great joys in life. read people who lived before you. walk in places that rearrange your perspective. ask questions that open windows into another human being’s soul.

in the dolomites i spent an afternoon listening to a physicist talk of particle colliders and detectors and atoms and other things i know nothing about – and from that encounter was born a kind of kindred love.

there are eight billion people on this planet. each one of us contains an entire universe.

8. empathy is recognizing that everyone is human instead of getting pissed off

as i’ve grown older, i’ve realized that no one does things without reason. there’s always a reason behind any behavior: that reason just isn’t immediately apparent to you.

the cashier who didn’t smile at you is tired from working all the time. your friend snapped at you because he has family stuff going on at home. the guy honking at you on the highway might have just had the worst day of his life.

it’s easy to write someone’s actions off as that of a crazy person. but actually, everyone’s behavior is driven by some reason that makes sense in their head. recognizing this is empathy: you have your good and bad days too. everyone else is just as human as you are.

9. give without expected outcomes

in the age of capitalism and hustle culture, we often precede every action with “what’s in it for me?” before we even ask “what can i offer?” it seems easier, safer to take rather than give.

but i’ve learned that giving – freely, without expectation – always finds its way back to you. give in ways that lift others, creating shared momentum rather than competition. through my work with , i’ve seen how curating spaces for others to grow has a way of circling back in time: people show up, support you, open doors you didn’t even know existed. not because you asked, but because generosity ripples outward.

love isn’t a zero-sum game. the more we give, the more there is for everyone.

10. touch grass. touch a wall. touch something, anything.

take off your shoes run in the water touch a leaf
walk through the city streets run your fingers along the concrete
listen to the sound of kids laughing, the flutter of swallows overhead, the rustling of pine trees
the world is here, you are here. what surrounds us is vast and oceanic and unimaginably beautiful.

and amidst all this, against all odds, you are here.

i repeat: you are here.

(a scene from nomadland that reminds me how vast and beautiful the world can is)

love always,
kora

book update: i can’t believe i’m saying this but my book will be published at the end of november. next post is the announcement post. stay tuned :))

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if you’re interested in beta-reading my book, leave me a message below :)

🌅 the year is over

in may, i wrapped up my year of travel in peru.

in june, i found myself staring out the window in the surf town of tofino, british columbia. a friend i met in el salvador had graciously invited me to stay at his pad while he was away. from his house on the water i could watch the seaplanes come and go.

tofino is a small town: the downtown area is just a few blocks wide, a few blocks deep. it has a couple restaurants: fish fry, burgers, poke bowls. i surf, go on long bike rides, write my book. three weeks of restful, quiet solitude.

towards the end of my time in tofino, i join a local boat tour on a whim. there are a few others on the tour: a pair of swedish women in their 60s, a young couple from toronto. a mother, paula, and her 9-year-old son merle. when we arrive at the hot springs destination, i find myself sharing one of the pools with paula and merle.

we fall into a conversation, as one does, about percy jackson, hero of my childhood dreams – apparently still popular with kids these days. if you could choose, which greek god would you want to be? merle asks me. poseidon for sure, i tell him. i could swim wherever i want, talk to all the animals of the sea.

but what about hades! merle says excitedly. what about hades? i raise an eyebrow.

you could have skeletons carry you around, he says, splashing his hands in the water. you wouldn’t have to walk anywhere!

okay… that would be pretty cool, i admit.

and, he adds, you could talk to dead people. at this i notice paula look away.

when merle gets bored of us he clambers off to another pool, nimbly picking his way over the rocks. he’s a great kid, i say to paula. and i mean it. merle was only 9, yes, but i could tell he had heart. he is, paula smiles. he takes after his brother.

what’s his brother like? i ask.

he was kind, paula says, and for a few moments she says nothing. and – well, he passed away a few years ago, when he was eight.

i pause before i respond. i’m so sorry to hear that, i say gently. that must have been really hard.

yeah, she says. it was.

what was his name? i ask.

lorne, she replies. his name was lorne.

for the next little while we talk of lorne, his kindness, his sickness. paula tells me about how his passing affected the family, how it affected merle. we muse on grief and loss as the springwater melts our fingertips into paper. the pain never really goes away, she says. but it does get better.

when we arrive back at the tofino dock i give merle a high-five and a hug. come visit us in colorado sometime! he says. i can show you all my percy jackson books. i give his hair a ruffle and he runs off into the gift shop.

then i turn to paula. it was so nice meeting you guys, i say, and she pulls me in for a big hug. thank you, she says quietly, her small arms wrapped around my neck. thank you. when we finally pull away we both find ourselves with a little blur in our eyes.

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how has my year of travel changed me most?

when my friends ask me the perennial question, this is the story i tell.

a year ago, i wouldn’t have been able to have a conversation like that. i wouldn’t have been able to connect so deeply with a stranger i had just met, to talk of a grief i didn’t know, been open and true enough for them to share their pain with me.

what’s changed is hard for me to pin down, even now. there’s maturity, yes. but there’s also a deeper sense of gratitude. the ability to hold space for others. the capacity for love.

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📖 book update

my book, which seems like it’s about travel, is really about love.

i started writing this book in february. in the months since i’ve devoured books on storytelling, combed through stacks of memoirs and travelogues and novels for inspiration. i’ve learned as much as i can in order to properly tell my story – the story behind a year of backpacking, and all the internal shifts that took place during that time.

the writing process has been full of starts and stops – countless revisions, full-length cuts, and the hardest part: figuring out what i’m trying to say. but i am proud to say that the first full-length draft is done, and that i finished it in about than a year. *pats myself on the back*

as i wrote, i realized that my year on the road was not so much about the traveling itself, but the changes in the way i understood and saw the world around me. and all of these changes pointed towards an opening of the heart, a gradual blossoming of love inside me. love for the world in all its beauty; love for the people in it – family, friends, strangers that remained strangers, strangers that became friends. love for the messy, interwoven web of connections that make this life worth living.

for those of you who have read my recent writing, this may not come as a surprise. yes, the book will still have wild travel stories, profound moments of reckoning, and serious musings – not to mention photographs and journal entries to illustrate the journey from different angles. but the overarching theme – the one thing i want readers to take away from it all – is love.

if you’re interested in being a dedicated beta reader for my book, feel free to message me – i’d love to hear from you.

🏗️ projects

a few months ago, i founded a creative residency with a friend; tomorrow, ’s first 4-week cohort begins in vietnam. we’re a group of ten creatives working across a variety of disciplines, and i could not be more excited. if you’re interested, you can sign up for our mailing list here or follow along on instagram here. we plan to host 2-3 more residencies this year, including a summer session in berlin.

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in the meantime, i’ve been chugging along on my other projects when i have the free time. legal meetings have taken place, business plans are being made, etc.; progress is being made, slowly but surely. i really hope to share more about these soon.

it’s the new year, and i’ve been reflecting on how each of the past few years have marked a different phase of my life.

2023 was a year of exploration and uncovering.

2024 marked the end of that exploration, and a shift into projects that called my name.

2025 will be the year of progress. i’m going full-steam on these projects. big things will happen – you heard it here first.

sending love,
kora ♥

thank you for reading an earlier version of this post.

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for those who have asked, in one way or the other: why did i leave everything behind in hawaii to travel? why have i been traveling for so long? why travel, specifically, over anything and everything else?

we’re driving down an empty forest road in blue mountains national park, two hours outside of sydney. e’s at the wheel, her brows knitted into a tight knot as she attempts to navigate the potholed dirt road like a trucker with a bad case of cramps. i try not to wince at every bump that shakes me off my seat, or think about the fact that the handlebar-mustached campervan rental guy had made it very clear: your insurance doesn’t cover anything that happens on non-paved roads as he handed us the keys.

the campervan is quiet, save for the sound of some local radio we’ve turned down low. outside, a woollen fog hangs off the forest canopy like an overgrown moss; flashes of dark branches pierce the misty veil, slender monsters looming with their claws. from the safety of our van i watch the rain fall like snowflakes onto the windshield.

earlier this morning, e had asked me over breakfast: why is traveling so important to you?

what do you mean? i respond between bites of pie. who doesn’t love traveling?

you know that’s not what i mean, she grumbles. e has a very good way of furrowing her eyebrows and glaring at me when she suspects i’m not being serious. you left everything behind in hawaii for – she waves one hand in the air, gesturing to the empty town corner we sat at – this.

all so you could “travel the world,” she wags her fingers.

why does it mean so much to you?

hmm, i murmur as i wipe my fingers on a paper napkin. that’s a good question.

she raises her eyebrows expectantly as i chew my way through the rest of the pie.

…let me get back to you on that.

e groans and rolls her eyes. i laugh and flick a crumb at her face.

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the year is 1970. through the cracked windows of a crowded fifth-floor tenement, a figure carefully rises from a thin pallet on the floor. with weary eyes, my grandmother moves slowly between the sleeping bodies strewn across the room; squatting down in one dim corner, she begins preparing a meager breakfast for her husband and five children.

when my grandparents first arrived in hong kong, the city was little more than a glorified fishing village. they had escaped war, violence and famine for a new chance at life in the tiny british colony on the southern coast of china. and for that chance, they had to rebuild their lives from the ground up: both my parents grew up dirt-poor, crammed into a single, one-roomed apartment with their siblings and family. to lift their families from poverty, my parents doggedly pursued careers that would guarantee them the financial stability they had lacked in their childhood. my father went into medicine, my mother into finance.

of course, they expected their children to do the same: the last thing they wanted was for us to end up in the same conditions they were raised. growing up, my friends and i expected – and were expected – to become financiers, doctors, and lawyers, spend our lives working a stable career.

there was no fog in the crystal ball of our young lives: our futures may not have been written yet, but the paths before them were as well-trodden and established as horsetracks in the winter snow. these paths were all our parents knew, and like folklore passed from one generation to the other, they became all we knew, could ever know.

but then i took my first backpacking trip at the age of 18. i had always been curious to travel on my own, and begged my parents’ permission to take a trip after high school. after months and months of cajoling, they finally gave their blessing; a few weeks later i set off for eastern europe with my best friend.

for the first time in my life, i saw the real world as it was – winding and unruly, unpredictable and so full of life. the path to stability and happiness, i found, took many forms; it certainly did not always look like what my parents had prescribed. nor did it look like it followed any particular set of patterns. as my journey continued, the crystal ball began to crackle and stir.

leaned against the stained wooden counter at a ruin bar in budapest, an artist told me that he had once studied to become a doctor, dropping out of medical school in his final year to pursue his passion for painting. under the stars of the siberian night sky, a girl told me of her father – a man who had left a lucrative banking career in the russian capital to start a small bakery in his remote hometown. i remember these conversations distinctly, the way the artist rapped his knuckles against the bartop, the slow burn of the cigarette in the girl’s hand as she spoke. for it was truly unfathomable to me at the time, to learn that people could seemingly possess the world at their fingertips, and still risk everything to heed a different call.

i met people, too, whose lives revolved around travel rather than work. europeans who worked seasonal jobs for short stints, in national parks as trail-setters and cruise ships as deckhands, saving just enough each time to travel freely for a few months. young people my age that had rainchecked college – something i had always considered a given – and traversed the continents in their first years of adulthood instead, volunteering in hostels and farms and wineries in exchange for food and accommodation. they had traded college classes and frat parties for a truer understanding of the world, and i could see it in their eyes, this wisdom that burned like quiet flame. i’ve since forgotten half of everything i learned in college, but somehow i believe that the wisdom they carried only grew stronger with time.

at every encounter the bounds of what was possible expanded in my mind. the crystal ball of my life, once so clear and defined, began to swirl with a blizzard of options as i began to dream of other lives i could lead. the future suddenly seemed much less certain… and yet that uncertainty invigorated me as i recognized that the world held so much more than i could have ever imagined.

in italo calvino’s invisible cities, there’s a scene where the protagonist sees a stranger in the square of some distant town. in the flash of a moment, he sees himself as that very man, in another, not-so-distant life. he realizes that, with only a few decisions differently-chosen, a few paths walked the other direction – “if he had stopped in time, long ago; or if long ago at a crossroads, instead of taking one road he had taken the opposite one” – he would be that man sitting in the square at that very second.

why does this travel journey mean so much to me? e had asked.

to travel is to discover all the lives we might have led, the lives we might still lead; the what-if’s of our past and future; all the possible ways our lives could have turned out, can still turn out.

i travel to see all the versions of myself i could have been – and all the versions of myself i can still be.

for the longest time i had expected to become an engineer, build a career in tech, eventually start my own company. but i knew, 3 months into my first job, that it would neither fulfill me nor call to me the way it did others. i saw how some of my colleagues and managers truly loved the work, breathed it, gave themselves to it. i saw their joy and i knew they had found their calling... and that it wasn’t mine.

but if i’m not an engineer, then what am i? who am i?

what was i brought onto this earth to do?

i left everything behind in hawaii to travel because i wanted – no, needed to attempt to answer these questions.

i needed to give myself a chance to see what else is possible for me. to hear stories of other lives, to try new things, to experiment. to discover what i like, what i don’t like, and what i love. to live in new surroundings, new locales, new communities. to explore the other lives i can lead.

and i gave myself a tentative year – not one month, or three, or six – because i knew this journey demanded the proper time it required.

i needed time to strip away the expectations i’ve carried since i was a child, to wash away the layer of stigma and societal pressure that suffocated me like a second skin.

time to remember childhood interests abandoned on the campaign to adulthood, resurface hidden talents, and coax out the parts of me that had tucked themselves away over years of pressure and schooling.

time to uncover new parts of myself that have yet to be unlocked, unearthed, brought to life.

only then, i knew, could i discover who i truly am and attempt to emerge again, anew.

this is why i travel.

thank you for making it this far.

this is an excerpt from a draft of my upcoming book, and the first i’ve shared in public.

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i guess when you're young, you just believe there'll be many people with whom you'll connect with. 

and later in life, you realize it only happens a few times. (before sunset, 2004)

i think one of my closest friends in college was a soulmate. 

she was quiet, and thoughtful, the kind of person who actually thought before they spoke. she asked good questions; she was curious, she was sensitive, she was shy. she once asked me how i found it so easy to exude my presence, to radiate the breadth of a room when instinct drew her towards the shadows. we were different in so many ways – my unfiltered opinions and arrogance juxtaposed like a river to the calm waters of her quiet sureties and inquisitiveness. and yet we cherished what we saw in the other, admired those very qualities we sought in ourselves. 

it was the kind of friendship that always hinted at something more – the meaningful glances at an inside joke that held for a second too long, the casual shoulder touches that lingered beyond mere affection. when we finally slept together, on a drunken night out that fall, we came together naturally, as if we had always known this would happen – this dance of attraction that had started as two atoms in the arms of covalence, bound together in the liminal space of two bodies become one. 

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and yet we never became anything. 

i didn’t allow it – never even entertained the idea or acknowledged the possibility, assumed she felt the same. sure, we slept together another handful of times, never quite intentionally, always a little drunk. but for all the time we spent together, the notion of Us, singular, never made it onto the table for discussion. 

i know, now, that we had something special. i think i knew it then, too: i remember telling my roommates that if we ever dated, we would probably get married. 

so why didn’t i try?

the single, most defining feature of youth: we see possibility in everything. i was 20 at the time, already dreaming of traveling, already thinking of life after college and all the possibilities it held. 

i never considered dating my friend because i assumed that, for the rest of my life, i would naturally and inevitably meet other people like her as a function of time. 

and i was right, to some degree. you don’t need to watch twilight or the notebook to know that you will meet people throughout your life that fit into your soul like hands to a glove, people that – for reasons you can never quite capture with words – you’re drawn to inexplicably, irresistibly, and inescapably. 

but the reality is that things rarely work out the way you want them to.

it’s a bit like murphy’s law: anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. maybe they have a significant other already. or you mess up, act too aloof, push them away. maybe it’s the right person but the wrong time; have you seen all 128 minutes of la la land? or maybe it’s the right time but the wrong place: you’re only here on vacation, and leave barcelona in a week. life happens. 

i don’t begrudge my younger self for his decision. regret is a language for situations where alternative outcomes were possible; 20-year-old kora hardly knew better. the only thing he could have done at the time was treat the relationship like any other college fling: low-commitment, low-expectation, and definitely not worth getting serious about. even if it was with a best friend. 

but five years later, i still find myself wondering sometimes: what if we had given it a try? what if i had cherished our relationship enough to let it grow? what if i hadn’t allowed my fear of commitment – of “limiting myself” – overwhelm everything else?

and i just want to give my younger self a good ol’ knock on the head for thinking that this kind of thing happened all the time.

i’ve spent the past few years moving from place to place – purposely untethered, letting go at every turn. i ended a relationship when i left california for hawaii; two years later, i did the same thing again when i left hawaii to travel. always, i chased the idea of “all the possibilities,” purposely leaving myself unfettered to explore new opportunities, people, and experiences.

and i’ve explored – and learned, and grown. i’ve met people i otherwise would have never gotten to know; spent days and weeks with travel flings from far-flung corners of the world who grew up so differently than i did; shared meals, sunset surfs, wine-filled nights with people who deigned to share a piece of themselves – their language, their traditions, their food – with me. i’ll tell you now that human connection is always possible, no matter how different we may seem.

but i’ll also tell you this: the type of human connection at the soul level – those profound, soulmate-esque bonds – are fucking rare. 

our soulmates in this life aren’t an ever-increasing function of time. they don’t magically appear in our lives every time we’ve lived a certain number of years, traveled to x number of countries, or met enough people to fill a small room. they’re few and far between. and they come into our lives unpredictably, spontaneously, often in situations completely beyond our control.

soulmates are like stars in the sky, a friend once told me.

sometimes, a speck of light enters our orbit but we’re not sure what exactly it is. maybe it’s a star. or maybe it’s just an asteroid, a satellite; a trace of dust in the twilight breeze or a subtle trick of the eye. 

i’m not saying you have to pay attention to every flicker of light that catches your eye. but don’t hesitate to get on your feet and take a closer look for yourself. it’s worth exploring, believe me.

because if it really is a star, know this: it only happens a few times.

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inspired by the friends who, after reading my last piece, texted me – kora! a girlfriend, long-distance, now of all times?! why?

if you enjoyed reading this post, it would make my day if you shared it with a friend. you can find my other essays here, or access my full archive here.

and a big, big thank you to the people who gave their time to read earlier drafts of this essay:







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NESCAFFIER: i'm a foreigner, you know.
ROEBUCK WRIGHT: this city is full of us, isn't it? i’m one, myself.
NESCAFFIER: seeking something missing. missing something left behind.
ROEBUCK WRIGHT: maybe, with good luck, we'll find what eluded us in the places we once called home.

– wes anderson’s the french dispatch

seeking something missing

people often ask how i ended up, at 14, halfway across the world at an american boarding school in new jersey. my default response is that my parents shipped me off from hong kong because i kept getting into trouble at school. the joke is partly true: middle school kora ended up at the principal’s office more times than i care to admit. but the reality is that my parents never forced me to go to boarding school. i chose to go.

the ones who choose to leave home: we all leave in search of something. something missing from our current lives. adventure. opportunities. people with the potential to change our lives.1

this sense of something missing, and the yearning to seek it out – it’s a feeling that courses through every fiber of our being. it’s a sense of disconnect that feels like debility and mental languor at the same time.

try as we might, this feeling cannot be suppressed or ignored; over time, it becomes a force of nature that lets us move the earth. in my case, it led a 14-year-old boy to move across the world to america on his own. me – a momma’s boy who had never lived away from his parents before, never even been to a summer camp.

don’t get me wrong – i loved hong kong. and yet at times i felt stifled, boxed in like a bird in a cage. my life felt stagnant: school took up so much of my time but taught me so little. even at 14, i knew i needed to explore another way forward. however far away, boarding school represented an opportunity for a life and education i couldn’t find back home.

missing something left behind

as my high school years flew by, i grew accustomed to the familiarities of my life in america. the freedoms of living away from home. the looser, distinctly american way of doing things that emphasized creativity and independence. i missed my family (and, of course, the food) but i never felt truly homesick – not even once.

it soon became impossible for me to see myself living in hong kong ever again. i enjoyed my visits home, but at the same time these visits always felt like a regressive step into the past. each time i boarded the plane back to the states, i told myself the same thing: i could never live here. it’s too different. the pace of life is too fast. none of my close friends are here.

and so i stayed. 4 years of high school turned into college. 4 years of college turned into work. the next thing i knew, 11 years had passed since i first stepped foot into new jersey.

and yet, something changed as i matured. gradually, bit by bit, i came to realize: wherever i moved, i sought out the places that reminded me of home.

growing up, i spent the sweltering hong kong summers playing in the ocean, and the cooler winters hiking up in the mountains. unsurprisingly, the first places i moved to after college emerged at similar convergences of the mountains and sea. santa cruz, off the pacific coast highway with its beautiful coastline and misty redwood forests. oahu, an island surrounded by pristine beaches and bifurcated by the towering koʻolau mountains. although i never explicitly drew the connection at the time, i had chosen to live in these places because they felt like hong kong.

even now, one of the very first things i do in any new city is to find a restaurant that serves hong kong-style food. i don’t care if it’s a hole in the wall or a 45-minute drive away – my soul demands it as a requisite for surviving in a foreign land.

in hawaii, i spent a month trying out various restaurants around chinatown until i found the one place that served char siu rice and hk-style milk tea just the way i liked it (shoutout sandy’s cafe!). sitting in my usual spot in the corner booth, surrounded by people speaking my language, i could close my eyes and pretend that i was back home and not in a small restaurant off the canal in honolulu, hawaii. and that always seemed to make everything a little more okay.

it’s funny: i never felt homesick at boarding school, despite moving across the world by myself. but once i acknowledged the fact that i tried to make every new place feel like hong kong, i began to miss it more and more. it’s now as an adult in my twenties that i miss home the most.

maybe we'll find what eluded us in the places we once called home

i began the piece with this scene from the french dispatch because **it captured something those of us who choose to leave home can never quite put into words: a sense of longing for the future, juxtaposed with a desperate yearning for the past.

our search for something missing is a constant motion, a tension, a struggle between opposites. we leave home to find the missing pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. but as exciting and novel as that journey is, we also inevitably miss the things we left behind.

i used to judge people for spending their entire lives in the same place they grew up. but these days, i often think that they’re the lucky ones. their first home was all they ever needed: they never felt the craving or urge to see what else is out there, or the kernel of dissatisfaction with their home – a constant, nagging sense of restlessness – that i wouldn’t wish on anybody. more than that, these people never had to know the experience of leaving.

but it’s only when we leave home that we see the beauty in everything we left behind. we realize, over time, that the things we left behind are just as important – maybe even more so – than the things we thought were missing. this realization alone justifies that journey of leaving for us. it makes it necessary and important.

we tend to fixate on the negative and only think about home in terms of the things we didn’t like. i couldn’t stand the hong kong education system and the relative rigidity of the culture – but i let those things overwhelm everything i did love about it. in the process of seeking, i forgot how much i loved being in the city with my family and childhood friends, surrounded by the mountains and ocean and people who spoke my language every day.

have i reached an end to my journey? i don’t know. i’m still traveling a lot, and the free-spirited part of me thinks i may never settle down permanently, anywhere.

but this year, i moved my homebase back to hong kong after 11 years away.

yesterday, i flew back to hong kong after 2 months in berlin.

today, i’m writing this piece from a cafe overlooking the water. steam rises from the bowl of char siu rice in front of me. a light ocean breeze tickles my hair.

i’m home. and i feel… whole.

i feel complete.

many thanks to , , and for reading earlier drafts of this piece.

I once read that the best stories are the ones you find yourself telling over and over again. Here’s a story I’ve been repeating recently:

The Story of the Zen Garden

In May my friends and I visited a Zen temple in Kyoto. Daisen-in has one of the most famous rock gardens in all of Japan. All around us, millions of small stones formed beautiful, swirling lines on the temple grounds.

As we looked out at the large main garden, our guide began to tell a story.

The main garden, she explained, represents nirvana – the ultimate enlightenment.

The various stone pathways leading to the main garden, she continued, represent the different paths to nirvana.

She then pointed at two large rocks sitting atop the pathway beside us. Can you guess what these two rocks represent?

We shook our heads.

This one is a turtle, our guide said, patiently pointing out the “head” and “legs” on the first rock. The other is a resting cow.

They’re stuck here because they haven’t reached nirvana yet. Can you guess why?

We shook our heads again.

Look at the turtle, she pointed. His “head” is facing the wrong direction! He’s swimming against the current.

Then she turned to the cow rock. The cow is facing the right direction… but she’s sitting down. She’s not moving.

See why they haven’t reached the main garden?

Without saying another word, our guide turned on her heels and strolled into the next room.

It took me a few moments to gather myself before catching up with the rest of the group. I was shocked. In one simple story, the guide had illustrated a concept I had been struggling to verbalize myself: how to find balance in your life.

Your life is an ebb and flow

Life is a series of ups and downs. We have these beautiful highs: falling in love. Holding a newborn in your arms for the first time. Summiting a peak. Completing a marathon you’d spent months preparing for.

And then we have the inevitable lows: the end of a relationship. The loss of a loved one. An injury that keeps you out of the water for months. Times when it feels like for every step forward, something pushes you two steps back.

Some people call life a rollercoaster; I think a better comparison would be a river. Life ebbs and flows; it consists of steps forward and steps back. But above all, it keeps moving. Your life has a current – a flow that carries you through it all.

Our guide’s story resonated so strongly with me because it illustrated the importance of going with the flow of your life. Instead of fighting the current, like the turtle, we should roll with the ups and downs of our journey as they come.

In many ways, this echoes the single biggest lesson I’ve learned from surfing. As a beginner, we instinctively panic and tense up when a wave throws us into the dreaded “laundry machine cycle”. I’d recommend watching all 20 seconds of that video: it’s terrifying to be tossed around underwater, and instinctive to fight against it. But struggling against the water actually wastes your energy and oxygen. The (somewhat counterintuitive) key is to relax, let the ocean have its way with you, and wait for it to inevitably spit you back out. In order to progress as a surfer and surf bigger waves, we need to learn to move with the flow.

At the same time, however, we can’t just flow all the time and expect life to take us exactly where we need to go. The resting cow failed to reach nirvana because she wasn’t taking any action. My other takeaway from the story is that it’s also important to take actionable steps that bring us closer to our goals.

I’ve put these lessons into practice as I navigate this strange, transitional period of my life. I prioritize flexibility and flow in my travels, opting to “figure things out when I get there” rather than plan everything out beforehand. However, I’m not just free-flowing my way across the globe: I proactively structure my travels in a way that supports my interests and fosters self-discovery. I’m here in Berlin right now because I want to surround myself with fellow creative-minded people and explore ways to further my artistic career. I’m going with the flow, yes. But I’ve also taken the time to reach out to galleries, take art classes, show up at events and meet other artists.

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Finding balance

The story of the Zen garden boils down to this: life is about finding a balance between flow and action.

Your life is a river, and it’s important to take the ebbs and flows in stride. At the same time, rather than simply drifting with the current, it’s also important to take steps to orient yourself on your journey.

Are you aiming for a promotion at work? Great – don’t drive yourself crazy and spend all your time stressing over it, but consider making a list of concrete steps that you can take to bring you closer to promotion-level. Thinking about leaving your job but don’t feel fully ready to make that leap yet? Go with the flow and see how things evolve in your life and at work, but start doing a little research to explore other options that may be a better fit for you.

We’ve all known people on either end of the spectrum: the overstressed, overworked achiever who gets so much done but always seem to be on the verge of a panic attack. The “lazy” friend who chills all day without a care in the world, but also doesn’t seem to have anything they can care about.

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There isn’t a single, right way to live your life. At Daisen-in, each of the stone pathways leading to the main garden represented a different path to nirvana. Some people’s paths may be 99% flow and 1% action. Other’s may look closer to 50% flow and 50% action.

The goal, I think, is to find the balance that allows you to move through life with joy and grace. 

They say the best stories are the ones you find yourself telling over and over again. 

I hope you’ll find yourself telling this one, too :)

There’s this scene I love from the movie Soul:

The protagonist, a pianist, leaves the concert hall breathless and excited. He’s finally achieved his dream of playing with a professional jazz quartet: at that moment, he feels on top of the world. 

But once the high of the performance fades, his face falls. When his bandmate asks him what’s wrong, the pianist says dejectedly, I've been waiting on this day for my entire life.

I just thought I'd feel different.

The illusion of happiness

Earlier I wrote about how I dreamed for years of traveling the world – and how, once that came true, I lost my desire to travel. 

As I spent the next few days in Japan struggling to understand what had happened, I gradually realized that I had built up this fantasy in my head. I had led myself into thinking that once I achieved my dream of traveling the world, it would be a fountain of fulfillment that would forever fill my happy-ever-after cup. All I needed was to make it a reality, and the rest will follow! Like the protagonist in Soul, I thought that the act of simply accomplishing my dream would change everything for me – that once it happened, I would automatically become happy, fulfilled. 

Psychologists call this the arrival fallacy. “Arrival fallacy is this illusion that once we make it, once we attain our goal or reach our destination, we will reach lasting happiness,” said Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar, a positive psychology expert. “[It’s] the false belief that reaching a valued destination can sustain happiness.”

Dr. Ben-Shahar calls it an illusion because that’s exactly what it is. As soon as the novelty of traveling wore off, I found that seeing new places can actually get… old. In the past, traveling served as a reprieve of sorts between other stages of my life – college semesters, starting work, etc. But now that I was traveling indefinitely, and purely for the sake of traveling, I discovered that the joy and excitement of exploring new places inevitably wears off. 

Without a larger driving force behind my travels, all I was doing was wandering aimlessly. Window-shopping in perpetuity, adrift like a log in the river. I had assumed that the mere act of traveling the world would be a purpose in and of itself. But it turns out that it isn’t as easy as saying I’m going to travel the world! The sense of purposelessness that permeated my travels told me I needed something more.

Rediscovering purpose

We’ve all heard the story: a professional soccer player grows tired of the game. Turning his favorite thing in the world into a career killed his passion for the sport: the pressure, press conferences, and fan expectations have all turned soccer into something that gives him more pain than pleasure. It’s not until he steps into a game of pickup on the street – surrounded by the concentrated, excited faces of kids who lived for this every day – that he rediscovers the pure joy and fun of the game. 

As I struggled to deal with my sudden lack of interest in travel, the first thing I did was go back to the roots of why I fell in love with traveling in the first place. What did my younger self enjoy about it? What about it excited me? What did I gain from it that made me so keen to jet off any chance I could get? 

When I framed travel in these terms, the answer came easily. I loved traveling because it changed the way I saw the world. I loved meeting people from all walks of life, who were so different from me, who showed me new ways of living, new ways of perceiving the world, new ways of moving through life. I loved experiencing other cultures, learning their history and beliefs and customs. I loved those moments of pure awe and astonishment when my mind simply struggled to comprehend the beauty before me, and the only thought I could muster into my head is my god, the world is so big. 

OK, I thought to myself. I’m not going crazy – I still love traveling. But why did it feel so purposeless? Was there any way I could give it some more meaning?

I started looking through my old journals for the notes I had jotted down wistfully as I grinded away in college and at work, dreaming of all the things I would do once I freed myself from the shackles of the workforce. Forgotten goals, half-baked aspirations, would-love-to-do’s-if-only-I-had-the-time.

I found a long list of things I wanted to learn: Spanish. Salsa. DJing. How to properly use my camera. On another page: a fully fleshed-out note on writing a coffee table book. Christ, how had I forgotten about all this? I still marvel, now, at how much we let ourselves forget by way of life. It’s these little musings, I think – these half-whispered daydreams – that slip through the cracks of our everyday routines that truly reveal our innate dreams and desires.

I kept coming back to one note in particular from January 2023. I’d written it a few weeks after I’d left my job: 

What’s my ideal life during this time?? 
• Traveling / new experiences - expansion and growth
• Meeting lots of new people - new ways of seeing
• Writing / photography - see and express the world from my perspective
• Creating Art - creating something beautiful

Was there a way I could put all this together?

A few days later, it hit me: this coffee table book idea – why not start it now? I’d be traveling all over this year, meeting all sorts of new people; I knew the journey would have its ups and downs, and I’d be learning and growing so much. I’d always loved writing, and wanted to put more time into it. I could shoot photos as I traveled, really shoot proper photos, and fill the book partly with photos and partly with prose, essays and poetry about my journey. And maybe, just maybe, this book could become something that other people might actually want to read.

And thus – after a long week of panic, doubt, introspection, and reflection – one dream filled the shoes of another, and künstlerroaming was born.

A new dream

And so, here I am. I’m excited to travel again: I have a new dream that gives me a renewed sense of purpose. But I know this dream isn’t going to fulfill all my hopes and dreams in life. I’m focused on the journey of getting there – the beautiful, crazy process – and not the destination.

I travel with a loose set of intentions for every place I visit, and I keep it all in a pinned note that I remind myself to check every once in a while. Right now I’m sitting in a cafe in Berlin, where I’ve just moved into an apartment the night before; Berlin is a place I’ve wanted to live in since visiting in college (yes – this, too, was in my journal). In this pinned note, it says Berlin – art, creative community, nightlife, DJing(??); I’ll use these as a starting point for my time here.

Above all, I’ve let go of these preconceived notions of what it means to “travel the world”. Over time, travel becomes just life, except in a different place. My globetrotting isn’t the end goal, and I’m learning to better appreciate this lesson every day. It really is about the journey after all.1

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The Big Lessons

1: Set your intentions
In retrospect, this seems obvious: be intentional about how you do things. It will give a sense of structure and purpose to everything you do.

But it’s important to remember to set your intentions before you start something new. As I learned the hard way, once things get going it’s hard to escape the tunnel-vision and take a step back to see the bigger picture.

2: Chase your dreams. But don’t expect them to be the end-all-be-all!
I believe unequivocally that having dreams is a net positive for you. They motivate you to soar higher and strive for things beyond your comfort zone. 

But don’t expect dreams to give you an additional sense of purpose. In fact, don’t expect anything from them at all. They will not solve all your problems or grant you forever happiness.

3: Renewing purpose: go back to the r o o t s
If you feel like you’ve lost your passion for something, look back to the start. Why did you do this in the first place? What did you originally love about it? What did you hope to get out of it? Whether it’s a passion, athletic hobby, endeavor or even a relationship, it can help to look back on the things that drew you to it in the first place. 

Skim through your old journals, your old notes. Talk to your friends and ask them how you used to talk about this thing. All this will remind you of your original why.

4: Finding purpose: orienting around your values
Another way of finding purpose is to look at your personal values and orient your actions around them. I value creativity and self-expression; working on künstlerroaming feels natural for me because it aligns with these values. How can you live your life in a way that supports and emphasizes your values?

5: LOOK UP!
Don’t become so focused on the ground beneath your feet – look up! Lift your head to the sky every once in a while and see the bigger picture.

to be followed by the final part of this 3-piece essay: part iii – an ode to dreams (chase them!).

There was once a boy who dreamt of catching the wind. 

He spent his days running around the fields of his village, arms outstretched; he chased every gust that tousled his hair, every gale that brushed his cheeks. He ran until the wind faded to stillness and his lungs burned for air. Do you really think you can catch the wind? The other kids laughed. Even his parents, who always entertained his ideas and fantasies, begged him to find better things to do with his time. 

But the boy was as hardheaded as a bull, and he kept chasing the wind. His quest took him deep into the wintery forests, and down the moss-covered riverbanks; it led him beyond the lines of his village, along forgotten roads and up the highest peaks. Months, years passed this way, and still the boy came no closer to grasping the wind in his hands.

One day a wise man passed through the town and saw the boy running through the fields. Boy! the man called out. What are you doing? 

I’m trying to catch the wind, the boy responded. He braced himself for the incredulous questioning that always followed. 

But the wise man acted as if he had said something perfectly mundane, as if he simply wanted to catch a butterfly or a fish. I see, the man said. He sat down on a nearby rock to watch. 

And so the boy took off running again. This time, for the first time, he felt the breeze curl around his fingers as he reached out his hand. And when he closed his hand into a fist, he felt something like a soft fluttering silk between his fingers, pressed furtively into his palm. At that moment, he knew he had finally succeeded: he had caught the wind. 

The boy ran back to the wise man, eyes wide with tears. I did it! he shouted, beaming. Look! He stretched his hand out to the wise man and opened it. 

But when they looked down, the boy’s palm was empty. 

The boy looked horrified. I swear I had it! I promise!

Of course you did, the wise man calmly replied. But have you forgotten? 

The wind is just air.  

Dreams, I learned recently, are a bit like the wind. 

Dreams give you substance. They fill you up, like air rushing into your lungs; they round out the edges of your personality like creases in a sleeping pad. In a time of uncertainty and fear, dreams can make you a little bigger, a little more ready to take on the world.

Dreams, too, push you to be better. They’re the air beneath your wings, lifting your feet off the ground. They encourage you to strive for more, to follow your ambitions, to reach for the stars and make the impossible a reality. 

But dreams are also really, really hard to grasp. After all, who can capture the wind? Dreams sometimes feel like they’ll always be a little out of reach, a breeze gently evading every graze of your fingertips.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve dreamt of traveling the world. There was never an epiphany moment, a turning point when this became a dream. But it’s something I’ve known since I was a tousle-haired kid, a fact of life as irrefutable as the fact that I love the ocean or that the sight of other people crying makes me want to do the same. Even then I had this unshakable conviction that the world has so much to offer, and that I wanted to experience it for myself. 

Here’s the difference between dreams and goals, in my mind: goals are made with the expectation that they can, with some effort, be achieved. They’re plausible, realistic – within reach. 

But dreams feel... loftier. Near-impossible, by some interpretations. Even the word dream itself exudes an aura of myth and fantasy. Dreams feel like something that can only be achieved with the utmost dedication and intention – and, even then, requires some divine intervention and a healthy serving of luck. An artist may aim to put on a gallery show, but they dream of exhibiting their work within the hallowed grounds of the Louvre. 

And so when you do achieve your dreams, it’s the most incredible feeling in the world. My younger self never imagined that he would one day have the time and money to travel across the globe; it was always too far in the future for him to even begin to picture. But as I grew older I took small but intentional steps to make my dream a little more real, to sketch the beginnings of an outline I could one day fill with color. I took off on my first backpacking trip the second I turned 18, backpacking across Eastern Europe and Russia with my best friend over 2 months; in college, I started solo traveling in between semesters. I learned to organize and budget my travels; I learned to socialize in hostels and open up to strangers. And I oriented myself towards a career that would give me the financial freedom and flexibility to make my dream come true.    

When I finally parted ways with my job this year and started traveling the world, I felt a pure elation, an unrestrained sense of satisfaction I had never felt before. I felt freer than I had ever felt in my life.

But less than 2 months into my travels, I realized that I didn’t particularly enjoy traveling anymore. If that sounds insane to you – trust me, I felt the same way. I was utterly shocked to discover that I had somehow lost my desire to travel during this time – and, moreover, that I actively dreaded the 6 months I had loosely planned out ahead of me. In Portugal, I caught myself zoning out at random moments throughout the day; even as I basked in the sights and sounds of a completely new country – a fun and exciting experience by any measure – I felt disconnected from everything around me. At times I even wondered to myself: what am I doing here?

This realization completely devastated me. How was it possible to dream about something for years and years, I asked myself, only for it to fall flat like this? I felt lost, numb, disoriented – shellshocked. I had given up a stable career, financial security, and my entire life in Hawaii to pursue this dream. Moreover, it had become a part of my identity over the years, something that gave me purpose and direction in life. Where the dream used to fill a space in my heart with something – a mixture of hope, purpose, and selfhood perhaps – it now left behind a gaping hole that sucked the very breath out of my lungs. The wind was just air.

And so, on a sunny May afternoon in Japan, I found myself spiraling into a panicked daze on the train, quietly trying to hold it together as my friends slumbered next to me. I knew I needed to figure out what exactly had happened to my dream, why the spark for travel had disappeared in me – and if there was a way I could bring it back. 

Read the second part of the series here:

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After Hawaii, I flew directly to Australia with my friend E. We rented a campervan and drove from Sydney to Brisbane over the course of two beautiful weeks.

In typical fashion, E and I flew into Australia without much of a plan. Aside from the dates of our campervan rental, everything else on our trip was up in the air. We didn’t know what route we’d take from Sydney to Brisbane, where we’d stop along the way, or – for that matter – where we’d even sleep the first night. 

Lucky for me, E happily went with the flow. We’re both happy-go-lucky types, partial to spontaneity, adventure and a little chaos; for context, I had texted E about going to Australia together only a few weeks before and she responded yes before even confirming it would work with her schedule. E is one of those rare people for whom “magical” is the only way to describe them. I love her for the wonder with which she approaches the world: the magic in everything constantly unfolds before her because she chooses to see it. 

Put the two of us together, and we were like two country bumpkins bumbling our way up the eastern coast of Oz with our heads knocked off. Our days in the campervan were beautifully, haphazardly thrown together1. In fact, we had little cell service and often ended up going with recommendations from Edwin, some 60-year-old Australian guy who sat next to me on my flight from Hawaii and steadily stream-of-consciousnessed me recommendations over the course of eleven hours as I tried to sleep. My notes from that flight, taken only because I wanted to be polite, ended up being a surprisingly useful offline resource for picking where to explore each day.

Our trip took us on a slow, meandering route from Sydney, through several national parks in the mountains, back towards the coast for a few days of beach and surf along the famed Gold Coast of Queensland (featuring a Kelly Slater sighting in the waters at Kirra), before ending in Brisbane just north of Surfers Paradise. We spent our last day holding koalas and petting kangaroos at a local wildlife sanctuary (yes, dreams do come true).

The words I would use to describe our Australia trip are slow, magical… flowing. In fact, I had trouble recalling any specific highlights when someone asked at the end of our trip. The lighthouse walk at Byron Bay was incredible, I managed to stammer out, along with a few other run-of-the-mill answers. 

I had hesitated because when I thought about it, the highlights of our trip were not what one would expect – or even what I myself had expected. Yes, we had done plenty over the past 2 weeks: hiking to Australia’s tallest waterfall2, surfing world-class breaks in Gold Coast, holding koalas in Brisbane. But to my surprise, my favorite moments emerged not from the things we did, but from the fleeting moments in between: 

Mornings in the mountains, waking up to the sound of rain.

Parking next to a beach with the trunk open, watching the evening pass us by. 

Driving up the awful mountain roads at Barrington Tops and bickering with E about the number of potholes she (accidentally, supposedly) ran us into.  

Getting Chinese takeaway and chasing it with local beers at the Irish pub nearby – right next to revelers out on a Friday night.

Why were these the moments that I remembered most?

The answer came once I realized that I had stumbled upon a new paradigm of traveling in Australia: the art of slow travel.

Slow travel, as its name suggests, centers around slowing down the pace of your travels. But what does that actually mean? 

First and foremost, slow travel means rethinking your relationship with time. 

Modern consumer culture views travel as a race against the clock: we demand to see as much as possible, in whatever time we have. We pack our itineraries with activities. We rank tour companies based on how efficiently they show us the greatest number of highlights within the shortest amount of time. And with the advent of travel Instagram and TikTok, we often treat travel like a Bingo card – a checklist of sights and activities we scramble to check off and flaunt on social media.

Slow travel asks you to slow it down – to give yourself more time in each place you visit. Instead of packing every square inch of your itinerary, give yourself downtime and breaks in between activities. Instead of bopping frantically from one city to another, consider reducing the number of places you visit and spending a few more days in each place. Allow yourself the pause option on the remote control – and not just the next button we’re so accustomed to.

Eckhardt Tolle (The Power of Now; A New Earth) wrote that “[people] treat the present moment as a stepping stone to the next moment – a means to an end.” In travel, it’s easy to constantly think about the next thing. But the second we slow things down and give the present moment our full attention, we become more mindful of every moment that passes by. We naturally become more focused on the present – the now of each moment. 

Which leads us to the second, fundamental part of slow travel: being present. Sit in your thoughts and truly pay attention to your surroundings. Give yourself the space to observe and appreciate everything around you: the local culture, the people, your emotions, and how you fit into this mosaic of life surrounding you. 

For as Tolle also said, the present moment is life itself. The present moment is where all the magic happens! Take a few minutes to sit on the street and watch the way the city moves. Strike up a conversation with the person standing next to you in line instead of pulling out your phone. Notice how the trees have not one but three different colors in their leaves; look up at the sky and name the shapes of the clouds. 

E and I began to slow travel in Australia because we weren’t rushing to get anywhere. This gave us the time to appreciate the most mundane moments – stopping in the tiny mountain towns we passed; chatting with the lady at the one pie shop we visited three times3; watching the leaves outside flutter and vibrate in the wind. 

So why do I remember these passing moments the most when I look back on the trip? In hindsight, the answer is surprisingly clear: it’s because slow travel allowed me to be present and give my full attention to each present moment – however fleeting or seemingly unimportant.

As Jon Kabat-Zinn said, the best way to capture moments is to pay attention.

I don’t think slow travel is an absolute – that all travel should be slow travel. As with all things, it’s about finding the right balance. It can be nice to have a few jam-packed tourist days here and there, where you get a lot done. Travel vacations are often short and warrant some busier days, especially with time and costs in mind. Most people have a limited number of days off from work and have good reason to pack things in.

And I’ll be honest – it’s hard to shift into the slow travel mindset. In many ways, slow travel feels counterintuitive. It asks you to suppress the ingrained habit of filling your time – something society has conditioned in us from an early age. More than that, it requires you to resist FOMO, to be okay with potentially skipping certain highlights, and perhaps hardest of all – to just sit still.

But I’ve learned that slow travel can make traveling a completely different experience – one that’s more purposeful, thoughtful, and eye-opening. When I slow travel, I’m much more observant of and curious about the world around me. I find myself more present in every interaction I have: I’m a better listener and I ask more questions. I’m more curious. And in moments of stillness or boredom, I look inwards and reflect or mull on a thought instead of scrolling on my phone. I end up learning a lot more about myself and discovering more about the world. 

I also think I’m happier mentally when I’m slow traveling. The nature of slow travel removes so much of the stress and anxiety of constantly bustling around (where do we buy tickets? what time does this place close? what time does the bus leave?). In Australia, I truly had never been so stress-free on a trip before. And it felt amazing.

Most importantly, slow travel allows me to focus on the journey of traveling rather than the destination(s). Travel is a rollercoaster ride with ups and downs, unexpected surprises and hidden wonders; slow travel allows me to appreciate every single second of it all, and not just the “fun” parts. 

So the next time you travel, try giving yourself some room to breathe. Sleep in and enjoy the rain; give yourself time to relax and really take in the view from your hostel or hotel room. Give attention to what’s happening in front of you – but also what’s happening inside your mind. Slow travel might just completely change the kind of experience you have. 

To end it with one moment from Australia my mind keeps floating back to:

I woke up to the most comforting sound in the world: rain. It drummed against the metal roof of our campervan, falling in a constant, pacing rhythm that was neither fast nor slow. Tap, tap-tap; tap, tap-tap, tap. Occasionally the wind rustled the branches above the campervan, a gentle creaking that formed a low baritone for our little rainy day symphony. Pure acoustic bliss.

I snuck one arm out from under the covers and peeked through the curtain. Through the inlets of water patterned across the car window I saw grey skies, grey clouds, and then some more grey. 

I looked over at E, tucked under the sheets with only her head peeking out. For a second I thought about rousing her out of bed. It was a little after 10am, a time that, by typical travel standards, warranted a scramble out of bed to jumpstart the day. 

But what was the point? We had nothing planned for the day, nowhere to be. And I was so darn cozy – like the feeling you get when you wake up on a snowy day, safe and warm under the covers. That’s exactly how I felt, though it was rain not snow outside, and I was tucked under a couple of sleeping bags instead of a comforter. 

In some ways, I liked this even better. I smiled to myself and snuggled back to sleep.

In addition to our campervan road trip, I also took a few days to visit family in Melbourne and see my best childhood friend in Sydney! Thank you Jeff/Regina/Dunc and Jeremy/Daph for having us.

Photos taken by yours truly during the drive from Sydney to Brisbane.

in april, i left hawaii after nearly 2 years. i spent the entire week before my departure on the verge of tears.

i’d be driving somewhere or paddling into the surf when suddenly, i’d realize that this was the last time i’d be doing this for a long time. in those moments i’d slow down, trying to capture every sight and sensation so that i could snapshot it into memory:

the way the koʻolau mountains misted over in the rain.
the sunset reflecting off the windows of honolulu, a view you can only really get from the water, and one of the best parts about surfing in town. 

but is it really possible to save a mental image permanently? i knew those moments would fade from my memory over time until they were only silhouettes of a silhouette — coalescing every so often by the breath of a photos memory, but destined to fade to black. 

what would remain, though, was how those moments in hawaii made me feel. and the truth is, they made me feel like home.

in hong kong, where i was born and raised, i’m what you call a third culture kid – someone who came of age outside of their home culture (i.e. where they grew up). i spent my formative years away from family and home: at 14, i went off on my own to a boarding school in new jersey; after that, college in north carolina, followed by a year in california before making my way to hawaii in 2021. america was where i had truly grown up as an adult.   

the thing about third culture kids is that our multicultural, cosmopolitan upbringing shapes the way we define home. we’ve continuously made new homes for ourselves as we transitioned from adolescence to young adulthood to adulthood. unlike people who have lived in the same country all their lives, home isn’t a single place for us. home is plural, scattered across the globe. 

for me, hawaii was one of those homes – but it was different from the rest because it was the only one that came close to feeling like home home. i felt deeply ingrained into the land and community, or the 'āina as they say in hawaiian. i knew the surf breaks on each side of the island and what tides and swell direction they worked best in each season. i knew where to find the best poke on the island, the best dim sum, the best soup noodles. i was friends with all the baristas at my favorite coffee shops and often had my order already waiting for me when i got to the front of the line (love you kam!). in many ways, i knew the island of oahu better than i knew hong kong. 

more than that, i had built a large, incredible group of friends over the course of 2 years – friends that i surfed with, adventured with, partied with. i loved these people. at my farewell party i remember looking around the table, surrounded by over 30 of my friends, laughing and chatting with each other; how did i get so lucky? i thought to myself. i knew that more than anything, these relationships would be what i’d miss most about hawaii.

and yet i had chosen to leave. why was i letting go of something so good? i had a life that ticked every box in every way and it felt absurd to walk away from it of my own accord. why? 

there’s an ebb and flow to your life, and no one senses it better than yourself. trust your intuition; listen to your soul speak.

i think your mind can feel when it’s time for a change. one day, out of the blue, you’ll be sitting at a coffee shop, or shaking your butt in the middle of the dance floor, when this exact thought pops into your mind: okay, this is great... but what’s next?

from that moment on, you start wondering if it’s time for a change of pace. you start daydreaming about what it might be like to live elsewhere, doing something different, surrounded by new people. you realize you’re not growing as much as you used to, and certainly not as much as you did when you first arrived. however well things seem to be going in your current life, something is… missing. you try your hardest to figure out what the problem is but you can’t find any. sure, some things could be better, but life’s still pretty good. and yet this gut feeling only grows stronger over time.

ironically, i first sensed this desire to leave after the best summer of my life in honolulu. it had been over a year since i moved to hawaii, and i’d just spent a whirlwind summer meeting new people, partying it up, and surfing the best swells of my life. i was watching the sunset from the beach one lazy sunday evening when i suddenly thought to myself: okay, i’ve just had an insanely fun few months and that was amazing. now what? 

the truth was, i was so darn happy in hawaii but i also realized that i needed to go. i existed and yet at times it felt like only 90% of me was there: i didn’t feel like i was actualizing the full potential of who i could be. when the opportunity arose for me to leave the stability of a traditional career path1, i took that leap of faith – even though it meant leaving behind my home away from home and everyone within it. 

leaving hawaii was the only way i could try to find that missing 10% and become fully myself, fully me. 

and so i’m sitting out in the water with my mind going a million miles per minute. i’m asking myself “why” not expecting a genuine answer, but rhetorically – my way of expressing the pain and reluctance of letting go. tears well up in my eyes like a shorebreak glistening in the tide. 

it’s true that third culture kids have learned to make homes wherever we go – but at the same time, our path also leaves us deeply familiar with the act of letting go. when i left hong kong for boarding school, i left the home where i had spent my entire life, along with my family, friends, and pretty much everything i had ever known. and i was only 14 at the time.

so yeah, i know how much letting go hurts. it feels like you’re losing something, a piece of yourself that you built up over time with love and tears and countless memories. a nest you painstakingly crafted with every leaf and stick tenderly placed. 

as human beings we have an innate fear of the unknown, and often cling to familiarity by default. to let go is to leave something as safe and familiar as home and step into the unknown. it’s terrifying and believe me, i still struggle with it at times. 

but what i’ve learned as a third culture kid is that you can choose to embrace the unfamiliarity, to carve out opportunities in the unknown, and to find a new beginning in every bittersweet departure. even though letting go may seem like an act of taking away, it also gives so much in return.

letting go has given me the room for new experiences and growth. it’s taught me to value the time we have instead of taking things for granted. and most of all, it’s shown me that everything beautiful is impermanent, and that’s okay. my memories of the koʻolau mountains and the sunset over honolulu may fade in time – but what will remain in my mind, always, is the sense of beauty of a time in my life when i felt so utterly, happily at home in hawaii.

beauty is fleeting. but it was beautiful.

it’s getting dark now, and even the uncles are taking their last waves in. i dig under the “why” and the sadness, and beneath it all i find a buried excitement for what’s to come.

the master observes the world, 
but trusts his inner vision. 
he allows things to come and go. 
his heart is open as the sky.

– tao te ching, verse 12

photos taken by yours truly, across hawaii from 2021-2023. credit for the fifth photo goes to my dear sister natalie.