I will travel guilt free

I have been blessed to travel to some amazing places. I visited Lake Como one early January, when it was freezing cold and quiet.

Quiet is as I like it. 

I am writing from Sun Moon Lake, in the mountains of Taiwan. 

The similarities between it and Lake Como are startling. Yet this is far from the heaving crowds of Europe. 

Sun Moon Lake is not only beautiful, it is accessible and affordable. The indigenous Theo peoples made this their home, and their influence is still felt, particularly in the food and music.

You can cycle around the entire lake, which we just did, taking four and a half hours on semi-electric bikes, and stopping at temples and pagodas along the way.

As I write, my view is stunning, a balcony that would cost a ransom to enter in Como. 

I am glad there are parts of the world that have not made it into the heavily trekked tourist path. 

Before I left for this trip, I was accused of being a hypocrite for travelling for pleasure, for the cost to the environment. This troupe is one that is fed by those who want to keep us distracted by the obligation of the individual to make change, keeping us guilty and ashamed for the pleasure of travel.

As the big companies, particularly now with AI, eat the environment for breakfast, making any individual sacrifice look as insignificant as it is. (That is not to say we can make conscious choices and be mindful of our impact on the environment and on everything.)

In Syntropic World, we practice starting with the whole. Travel is not just the plane, train or car journey. It is an investment, educational, and worldview-changing. We return different, hopefully wiser. 

When we look at the travel ignorance of wealthy countries like the United States, where exceptionalism is the norm, we can see that when people travel, they usually increase their compassion, empathy and understanding of others. They begin to feel their place in the world, and know it is one global family and not isolated states.

I will travel guilt-free, as I expand my understanding of my brothers and sisters and the geopolitics of the world. Syntropic World will continue to work on changing the very system that makes it possible for the elite to crush everyone else while killing our planet.

And Beauty. The beauty of Sun Moon Lake will come home with me, healing as she always does.

Photo Taken November 2nd 2025, Article published November 3rd, 2025