One of travel's greatest gifts

You know how it seems like every time you travel, your bag somehow ends up expanding, even bursting at the seams, by the time you're ready to take it back home?

My fellow Ladies Climbing Coalition friend and travel partner May pointed this out to me at the end of our 17 day journey through the Kombu Valley to Everest Base Camp with Driftwood Adventure Treks.

​It stopped me in my tracks as she then observed how travel does the same thing with our bags that it does with hearts: it fills them up and leaves them more full than when we began.  

Morning light over Namche.

It seems to me that the more we open ourselves up to experiences and people that allow our hearts to be touched and cracked open, our souls to be moved and stirred, the stronger our hearts radiate back out into the world. 

This was the first big international trip I've ever embarked on, and it shook me to my core. There will undoubtedly be months of processing and assimilation to come. But something that's immediately apparent to me is the realization of how travel equally challenges and rewards our willingness to embrace our vulnerability by gifting our hearts with a deepened capacity for empathy. 

Everest Base Camp, April 17, 2018, elevation 17,600'.