The other day I was driving home from an appointment when I suddenly recalled walking across a cobblestone square in Marseille. These flashes keep resurfacing.

A run up a hill in northern Asia.

A street strung with fabric lamps in Vietnam.

A smile on a bus in Thailand.

Sipping afternoon coffee on the corner of a mesmerizingly efficient roundabout in Paris.

None of these moments are “highlights.” They’re not the kind of thing you post to Instagram or write home about. But they show up anyway—right alongside the red mountain runs in Sedona. As if the quiet alleyways, the train stations, the grocery stores mattered just as much.

It’s not that I’ve forgotten the Coliseum or the wine on the mountain shelf above Grindelwald. It’s just that the act of buying that wine in a Swiss grocery store seems more vivid now than the otherwise more memorable experience of drinking of it in the mountains.

The triggers, assuming place is somehow the trigger, are random. I was on an elevator when I remembered the red clay under my feet at the Cambodian border. Loading the dishwasher when I was suddenly back at a sidewalk book stall in Hanoi.

The lack of connection between present and past is strange enough. Stranger still are the memories themselves, most of which wouldn’t make anyone’s highlight reel.

The sound of a distant motorcycle on a quiet street in San Sebastian.

Ascending stairs at a uni-style café in Copenhagen.

The feel of a paper map at a rental agency in Reykjavik.

A hot breeze on a narrow street in Athens.

Taken out of context, these recalls are pretty ordinary. Mundane even. But they’re saturated with curiosity, attention, and stillness.

But that’s travel. Walk down a street for the first time and everything sharpens because there’s no pre-existing associations informing how you experience place. Travel makes awareness easy.

The traveler’s default setting is awareness.

From that perspective, maybe it’s no surprise these are the moments that return. When everything is novel, everything matters. The Coliseum and the corner shop land on the same shelf—not because they’re equally striking, but because the myth of travel puts the icons there in advance. The Eiffel Tower, Niagara Falls, the beach in Bali—they arrive preloaded, long before you set foot in Paris, Toronto, or Indonesia. But anyone who’s travelled for more than a few days knows the real experience isn’t built on those alone.

To travel well, you need a purpose—a goal, even a small one. Visit a friend. Run a marathon. Try the oranges in Spain. Or yes, to see the Coliseum. Because without goals, travel risks becoming vague, aimless (and you don’t want to wake up in a foreign city wondering why you’re there).

Goals give shape to travel the same way they give shape to life. They point you somewhere. But it’s the steps you take to get there that teach you how to live—how to pay attention, how to read a system, how to navigate new ground and to communicate. And when you start noticing, you start appreciating—people, infrastructure, how things work. From this appreciation comes care. And from care, the desire to act with integrity and to contribute meaningfully to the richness of things.

The minutiae of travel—the grocery store, the rental counter, the quiet street—when they return, they’re not just memories. They’re reminders.

Pay attention. Pursue your goals with dignity. Cultivate appreciation.

And take what travel offers: a way of living with your eyes open. A way to carry awareness into ordinary life.

A way to travel on the spot.

JM.