1. Wherever you are, close your eyes and try to feel the sense of what you are doing.
Give yourself a moment to to feel everything you are while your free from everyday life. It will empty and fill you at the same time, can you believe it?
2. Never mind about the most famous monument of the city, it will be full of tourists!
Take a moment instead and savor a type of coffee and a cake that are just there.
In other words, go to a place that you will not find anywhere else!
You'll be amazed by the number of times you'll remember it instead of the number of museums you've visited.
3. Make some international friends, you have no idea how it will open the borders of your mind!
This is one of the best things about travelling abroad! Meeting new people ready to open up to live a 360 °adventure is pretty simple.
Are you shy? Make your journey with a non-profit organizaition like AIESEC or EF, which also give you the opportunity to study abroad.
4. Visit a place far from civilization and turn off your phone for 48 hours.
Detoxing yourself from the Internet and from Whatsapp will let you experience the passing of time and the sense of space in a whole new way.
Do you believe me? There is no Wi-Fi in the forest but I swear you will find a better connection! Which our generation would have never known otherwise.
5. Laugh a lot, do anything you wouldn't do if you were at home.
Get rid of those phrases like"I can't", "What do they think about me?" and take advantage of the fact that few people know you to run into new possibilities: dance with a friend on the street with the music aloud, sing on a stage, busk in Melbourne , skate in Budapest's park ... maybe trying new ways will make you find your way!
6. Eat a typical dish of the area, better if homemade.
By eating a typical food of the place you're traveling in, your brain creates a connection between it, your mouth and your heart.
It's nameless and authentic: by eating it we finally enter into the city's culture, creating a strong link between it, us and those who gave us the food.
7. Be driven from your instinct and your eyes than by the maps
(Or you'ill see nothing).
Living in a new city puts a strain on your sense of direction.
If you'll never look up to the sky to dive in the streets you walk, you'll never have lived in that city, you'll just have toured it!
Leave the mobile screen and the paths: don't plan your tour, go and follow what whatever attracts you telling you "i'm yours" somehow.
8. Organize all you can before the trip and you'll have much more time to enjoy your stay.
Yeah, I know it sounds obvoius but this advice changes everything about your trip!
You can walk around aimlessly but If you don't have any hostel to come back to you'll lose so much time struggling to find Wi-Fi.
Do you want anxiety to take you apart? The more certainties you have before leaving, fewer distractions you'll have while exploring.
9. Close your eyes, breathe and think about all those negative poeple and things you wanna get out your life.
Than take your phone and write just to who you really miss: this skimming could go on when you'll be home again!
10. Draw and photograph (with your eyes or your camera) all the tiny things which shudder your heart at their sight.
One day they will come back into you and you'll see how happy they'll make you!
11. Discover and feel the differences between the foreign country and yours by listening to the adventures of who's lived there for a long time.
Then you'll understand that newspapers, the opinions of your country's politicians and the stereotypes about that country make less sense than it seemed!
It's another certainty falling apart and a little more proximity to a far people , especially if troubled and varied as the ukrainian one.
photos by Miriam Panieri (me), Carlo J. Scaperrotta Sanabria, Artur Komendacki, Google images and Tumblr.com
Check my Gallery for other photos and drawings of my travel in Ukraine!