What a privilege.
Tea pickers on steep green hills that make your calves hurt just looking at them.
Tuk-tuk drivers who operate on instinct and divine intervention.
Safari guides who can spot a leopard before you’ve even found your binoculars.
And the young team at our camp — calm, polite, curious about where you’re from.
You meet a huge mix of people here.
And here’s the thing.
They just seem… alright.
Not fake-hotel-smile alright.
Not “five star TripAdvisor review” alright.
Just steady. Content. Grounded.
One young lad at the camp said something that properly made me pause.
“Sir, I’ll never be able to travel the world. But I’m blessed. In this job, the world travels to me.”
That’s not a line from a self-help book.
That’s just how he sees it.
He might never leave Sri Lanka.
But he’s heard about Glasgow rain, New York noise, Tokyo speed, London prices (that got a laugh).
He gathers stories the way some of us collect air miles.
We move. They listen.
We fly halfway round the world to “experience culture”.
He stays put — and hears about the world from people who can’t wait to get back home.
There’s something quietly brilliant about that.
We often measure success by how far we’ve gone.
He measures it by how much he’s heard.
And maybe that’s just as rich.
The Third Half bit
The first half of travel is the photos.
The second half is the food.
The third half is the bit where something small shifts in your head.
Not in a dramatic, life-changing way.
Just a gentle nudge.
You realise that opportunity looks different depending on where you’re standing.
And contentment isn’t always tied to movement.
Depth can matter more than distance.
I’m very aware that being here is a privilege.
But every now and then someone says something so simple it rebalances you slightly.
“The world travels to me.”
I’ll remember that longer than any safari sighting.
And maybe the real point isn’t how far we travel —
But how open we are when we meet.
And if I’m honest, as someone who has spent 35 years boarding planes for meetings, chasing deals, chasing growth…
There’s something slightly amusing about realising that this young lad might be travelling just as far as I ever have.
He just doesn’t need a passport.