The hassle is real. The expense is significant. The environmental impact weighs on me. So why am I sitting here in Phnom Penh right now, jet-lagged and completely energized at the same time?
Back home, with everything going on in our country, I find myself spending too much time inside my own head. I get comfortable in my routines, my perspectives, my familiar frustrations. Travel forces me out of that inward spiral and makes me look outward instead. There’s something about being in a completely different place, surrounded by different people living different lives, that snaps me back into the world.
Being here is also holding up a mirror to my own culture in ways I wasn’t expecting. Phnom Penh has this incredible energy – chaos and life bursting through everywhere you look. The pace, the sounds, the way people interact with each other and move through their city – it’s showing me assumptions I didn’t even know I was making about how life gets lived.
This trip is deeply personal for me. Back in 2013, I helped fundraise for the Khmer Magic Music Bus. I believed in the vision of Cambodian musicians traveling to rural and indigenous communities to share traditional instruments and songs, but I’d never actually seen it in action. Being here for the first time, finally meeting these incredible people I’d only known through Zoom calls, emails, and an occasional visit to the States, feels like completing a circle that’s been open for over a decade.
What strikes me most, though, is how much is universal. Yes, everything here is different from home - the language, the food, the way traffic flows, the rhythm of the day. But the people I’m meeting are brilliant, hardworking, and passionate about their country and culture. The kindness we’ve encountered from everyone has been overwhelming. We’re spending time with people who value truth, art, and beauty just as deeply as anyone back home.
Travel reminds me that the world is both bigger and smaller than I think it is from my desk back home. Bigger in its diversity and complexity, smaller in its shared humanity. For me, that’s worth every hassle, every dollar, and all this jet lag.