People love to ask about travel. Where have you been? What’s your favorite city? What country changed you? This is usually followed by a mental highlight reel of airports, shoes kicked off, and that one time someone cried in customs because their bag didn’t make it.

Let me brag for a second then. I have been to all continents except Antarctica. I’m hoping to go next year in some circuitous way. But anyway, I’ve been to many, many countries. I’ve slept in all 50 US states.  I love traveling.

If I heard to answer in a traditional way, here we go. 

New Orleans.
I love that city like no other. It is its own organism. Music leaks from the walls. Food is religion. Food is my north star.  Geography defies logic. People talk to you like they mean it. I’ve been more than ten times and have never, not once, had a bad experience. Every visit reveals something new. A street I hadn’t noticed. A band I didn’t expect. A reminder that joy can be loud, messy, and deeply soulful all at once.

Japan.
I was enthralled. Completely. The people. The care. The precision. The way time moves both fast and slow. I loved how they loved my son and how kindness didn’t need translation. I didn’t make it north and that feels unfinished, like a sentence without punctuation. I don’t just need to go back. I want to.

Colombia.
Warm people. Incredibly fresh food. Color everywhere. Life felt lived out loud. There was so much to do, and somehow also space to breathe. I need to return. Not because I missed something but because it left a mark.

Truth is, I’ve loved almost every place I’ve been. There’s always something to take with you. A way people greet each other. A pace. A taste. A reminder that the world is bigger than whatever story you’re telling yourself that week.

But here’s the wrinkle.
The spice.
The plot twist.

One of the most interesting places I’ve ever been is in my dreams.

I lucid dream. My sleep tracker confirms it in that REM cycles light up, heart rate shifts, the data nods politely and says, “yes ma’am, you were absolutely elsewhere.” And these aren’t fuzzy, forget-by-morning dreams. These are full-production films.

My dreams are movie reels. I’m in them. I’m also watching them. Director and lead actor. Sometimes I’m Indiana Jones, saving people in caves and on city streets. Sometimes more like Jason Bourne in that they are fast, strategic, quietly competent. There are chase scenes. There is purpose. There is always a soundtrack that would make John Williams say, okay, wow.

The question, of course, is:
How do I tap into this?

Are there meta-glasses? A dream HDMI cable? Something that lets me project this onto an IMAX screen so the rest of the world can see what my subconscious has clearly been budgeting millions to produce?

Because honestly, here we go. Oh to dream. Oh to travel. Oh to realize that some of the most extraordinary places aren’t stamped into a passport at all.

They live in memory. In imagination. In that thin, electric space between waking and sleep.

And really, lets pause for a second and ponder. What is travel, if not that?

Sweet dreams!