Writers write for different reasons. We may use words to process an event or tragedy, unraveling our convoluted thoughts. We may plug a void with our voice or perspective. We may be attracted to the craft itself, using metaphor or other literary devices to express our ideas. We may share our expertise with a wider community.

I did it for the pure joy of the thing. And if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever. - Stephen King, On Writing

While our motivations may differ, writers do share one type of experience: every so often, we’re unable to complete a story. …

Grounded travelers around the world are tired of waiting. You’ve been gazing at family members or roommates across the living room for almost a year, and your heart craves views of Dubrovnik’s red walls, Costa Rica’s green jungles, and Thailand’s blue water. The most fidgety of you are planning your next journey before being vaccinated.

Formerly overcrowded destinations sit empty. Deals and discounts abound. Airfare is inexpensive.

Some of you cannot resist.

We’re not here, in this article together, to discuss the ethics of your decision. We’re here to discuss how to travel well, how to travel right.

(My family and I canceled a year-long around-the-world trip due to COVID-19, and we anxiously and eagerly hope to reschedule soon. We’re choosing to wait, though, for our vaccinations.) …

As people around the world settle into 2021 with hope in their hearts and visions of vaccines in their veins, they’re not all fighting off hangovers like many Americans do on January 1. Instead, they may be removing yellow underwear or reaching for potatoes under the bed.

Various rich — and sometimes bizarre — New Year’s traditions around the world may bring blessings, abundance, and treasure in the year to come.

Some of my favorite New Year’s practices from around the world.

Europe

• Germans might melt wax figures (which were traditionally lead) in a spoon over a candle. …

Travel and Mali

The canvas bag slung across Issa’s body dripped with blood. The sack changed from its original flax color at his shoulder to crimson red by his belly to deep rust at his hip. At that hip, the bag hung with a weight of something large and ponderous.

Issa beamed. He laid down his machete, a two-foot-long straight piece of steel set into a battered wooden handle, and asked me excitedly if I wanted to see what he’d killed.

Typically, Issa presented bush rats or birds; the former his wife cooked and fed to the family, the latter his son used as a toy, tying it around the neck with a string and swinging it in wide arcs. …

When we’re not craving a relaxing, slothful beach vacation, we’re often wanting our international travel experiences to be deep, meaningful, and transformative. How do we make that happen? With each of us carrying around our own complex stew of morals, fears, challenges, and strengths, we develop dozens of orientations toward travel planning.

What type of travel planner are you?

Perhaps you are well-researched and take pleasure in a detailed itinerary, knowing you won’t miss out on any sites, pieces of art, or a desired culinary epiphany. You carry a binder.

Instead, maybe you hire a travel agent, book a tour that spans the length of the trip or schedule a series of guides in each city. …

Traveling fearlessly and with an open mind unlocks experiences you couldn’t have orchestrated, yielding not just dinner party stories once you’re home, but moments that could transform you and your traveling companions into better world citizens.

An altered worldview and profound personal growth don’t happen all at once, and of course, require multiple powerful moments layered up over time.

Sometimes you don’t even know they’re happening.

You stop to watch a man mixing a deep purple drink at a food cart in Peru, and the next thing you know, you’re taking your first sip of chicha morada with him and his cronies on the curb. You turn a corner in Mahabalipuram, and a teacher invites you to talk about your country to her students; you spend an unexpectedly powerful few hours playing with Indian children with bright smiles. …

In the United States, people often use the verb “to do” when talking about travel. “We really want to do France when the borders open back up.” “We did Morocco, and it was fabulous!”

That verb always stops me in my tracks and draws me out of the conversation. The flippancy inherent in that verb, when used about a travel destination, makes my skin crawl.

We do lunch. We do our hair. We do…other things. Here’s why we shouldn’t “do” countries.

We dismiss the richness of the place.

To say we’ve done Egypt, for example, diminishes the meaning of the place for millions of people who live there. They raise their children there; they contribute to their communities; they work to improve their way of life. …

At age 15, I first noticed the allure of the United States. That summer, I traveled to Greece as an exchange student where I lived with a host family in Thessaloniki, in the north of Greece, who had a summer home in a beach town nearby. My two host sisters, one my age and one a few years younger, spent summer days lounging on the sand with friends and evenings at open-air discotheques.

For a girl from Puritanical New England, the lifestyle felt dreamy and fascinating.

And to the Greeks, I was fascinating simply due to my nationality. They marveled at my Levi’s jeans. Were they real Levi’s, they wondered? Were they cheaper than in Greece, where one pair was barely affordable? How many did I own? Oh, and had I seen Patrick Swayze or Andrew McCarthy walking down the streets (this being 1990, after all)? …