Walkabout

Taking a break to find yourself — radical mindfulness everyone should try at least once

I am on a dirt road in the middle of northern Italy, it’s the middle of nowhere, its pitch black, there are mosquitos literally ravishing my body in ways I can’t comprehend and I am waiting, waiting, waiting for people I have never met to pick me up.

This is safe right? It’s normal to trust people you have never met. It’s normal to book a flight to Italy to a place you have never heard of, to meet people you have never spoken to, to work on a project you care passionately about with five days notice. You will be trusting the advice of strangers, based on finding them in a google search and deciding within 10 minutes this was the best thing you would do this week. And it wasn’t expensive — the flight was €40.

It was by far, the smartest thing I had done that week and one of the many most amazing decisions and experiences I have had over the last six months on my walkabout.

So I hopped on a plane from Madrid to Torino and caught a train to a small village called Pinerolo to work with an amazing photobook publisher Akina Books to learn how to make handmade photobooks.

Jump back to meeting them on that lonely dark road surrounded by vineyards and after a few WhatsApp — where are you…