Last day of 2025 & a review of the best year of my life.

12-31-2025

I’m in Mexico City right now. I honestly don’t even know how I ended up here. I just know I’m alive in the simulation and doing well.

I’ve been walking through uncharted territories in the simulation, at least uncharted to me, and it keeps hitting me how much of the world I have not seen. Streets I have never walked. Cultures I never touched. Ways of life that move on completely different rhythms. Being here makes my own life feel small, like a drop of water in a vast ocean.

This year I traveled to about 31 cities across the United States and around the world. What makes this year different is that it is my first full year of real freedom in 12.7 years. For a long time, travel was not an option for me. I lived with limitations, fear, and uncertainty tied to a case that followed me everywhere. When that case was finally dropped, something opened. Movement became possible again, and with it came perspective.

At first, the travel felt unreal, and I had serious imposter syndrome. It felt fake, like someone else was walking in my shoes. Every time I landed in a new city, I felt like the Feds were going to arrest me and put me in jail for eight years. Even when nothing was wrong, my body did not believe it yet. It felt like I was just moving because I could. But looking back now, it feels necessary. Somewhere along the way, travel stopped being about places and turned into real soul searching. I got to see who I am when nothing around me is familiar and no restrictions are hanging over my head.

I spent a lot of time alone this year. Walking. Flying. Sitting with my thoughts. My metacognition grew more this year than it ever has. I can see my patterns now. I can catch myself in loops I used to live inside without noticing. I learned where my fear came from and how much of it was never mine to begin with.

Physically, I am in the best shape of my life. Not from perfection, but from consistency. I moved my body. I adapted. I ate whatever came in front of me in different cities and countries. Different foods, different schedules, different environments. Instead of fighting change, I learned how to work with it.

I really believe solo travel before having kids is important. You should see the world before locking yourself into one version of life. Not to escape responsibility, but to understand yourself before building something permanent. Travel removes the scripts and shows you who you are without the noise.

The biggest realization this year has been the people. There is a real filter when it comes to traveling or living abroad. You have to be willing to take risks and step outside the status quo. Because of that, you meet one of one main character types everywhere you go. People who chose growth over comfort and built lives that actually make sense to them.

The contrast is impossible to ignore. Back home, life can shrink into repetition. Same job. Same coworkers. Same conversations. Out here, everyone has a story worth listening to. Everyone made a different choice at some point.

What still blows my mind is how much fear holds people back. Fear of safety. Fear of the unknown. Fear of leaving what feels familiar. Most of that fear is inherited and imagined. I lived inside it for years without realizing how much it shaped my decisions.

Travel taught me that the world is not what we are told it is. It is more open, more alive, and more forgiving. Growth does not come from standing still. It comes from movement, even when the direction is unclear.

Looking back on 2025, I see a year of expansion. Expansion of awareness. Expansion of freedom. Expansion of self trust. I met parts of myself I never had access to before. I let go of versions of myself that were built around survival instead of living.

Travel does not just show you the world. It shows you how many versions of yourself were possible.

And this year, I finally got to meet them.