How Travel Can Help You Feel at Home in the World: Finding Your ‘Soul Places’
One of the most common questions people ask about travel is: Is it safe? And of course, that’s a valid thing to consider. But lately I’ve found myself wondering something else entirely: What if travel can actually make you feel safer ~ not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually too?
I was recently talking with a friend about how different countries seem to hold completely different energies. It’s not something you can see or logically explain, but you can absolutely feel it once you’re there.
Some places may suddenly bring out your creativity, while others may make you more introspective or philosophical. Some leave you feeling energised, like your ‘best self’, while others leave you feeling heavy, dull, or simply nothing at all.
And then, every now and then, you land in a place and almost immediately, it somehow feels like home. Not in the practical but in the soul sense. These are what I call ‘soul places.’
Destinations that somehow match your internal frequency. Places that bring peace to your nervous system, or give you sparks of inspiration, important reflections and answers, naturally.
And when you begin the journey of recognising and finding such places, you start to see the hidden power travel actually has. It stops being about trying to tick off a list of countries and more about discovering the pockets of the world that are essentially, pieces of your own self-discovery puzzle.
And in this knowing that such places exist, something inside you begins to feel safer too.
Building a Personal Map of Soul Places
Over the years, I’ve found four of mine so far: Berlin, Ubud, Paris, and Hoi An. This is the reason why, if you’re following me on instagram, you’ll see that I return to these places again and again (and wrote insider guides of my favourite spots for each).
Berlin, it seems, is one of those marmite cities that people either love or hate and for me, it has been my place of becoming. I’ve been based here for almost a decade now and it’s witnessed many versions of myself: the bold 20-something expat, the overworked PR girl, the party lover, the budding entrepreneur, the woman discovering yoga, wellness and a slower rhythm.
It has held me through transitions, and allowed me to evolve in a way other cities may have limited. I believe I was meant to land here for that reason, and my soul still feels at home.
Then came Ubud, Bali. My place of peace, health and spiritual charging point. I first stayed there for six months in 2022 and the way it nourished my body, mind and spirit is like nothing I have ever experienced.
Knowing there is a spot on the map where I can go to heal, reset, and reconnect during life’s inevitable storms gives me a deep sense of peace ~ and a lot of gratitude.
Paris speaks directly to my creativity. The moment I step onto its streets, I feel like the version of me that wants to write, create, contemplate love, and be moved by beauty wakes up. It’s like the city and I have an unspoken agreement: she’ll show me magic with back to back serendipitous moments and encounters as long as I keep my heart open. And she always does.
My most recent soul place is Hoi An in Vietnam. As I was in the taxi from the airport during my first visit in 2024, I had butterflies and my eyes started watering from an intense feeling of joy.
It’s as if my soul knew in advance that I was going to love it there, and it turned out to be correct. This is my place of peaceful slow steady living, where I can exist without urgency and work on projects in an environment where not even 0.001% stress can reach me.
These places have truly contributed to me understanding more who I am.
How Travel Helps You Connect With Yourself
This is what I mean when I say that travel can make you feel safer. Because when you’ve found a collection of soul places, it’s like having a constellation of soft landing spots around the world. No matter what happens, you know there’s somewhere meaningful you can go that stirs your soul in some way.
And the more of these you find, the more the world begins to feel like one giant home ~ with rooms of different colours designed for different purposes, that just happen to be countries apart.
Why some places resonate with us so deeply while others don’t is a mystery. Maybe it’s memory. Maybe it’s timing. Maybe it’s something our soul recognises before our mind can explain it. Past lives, parallel lives, or simply resonance ~ who knows.
But how beautiful that these places exist at all.
And how special that by following a quiet inner pull, travel can become not just an external adventure, but a deeply personal one too.
If you’ve ever felt drawn to a place without being able to justify it logically ~ maybe that’s worth listening to. It might not just be a destination calling you. It might be a part of yourself. Isn’t it worth finding out?
