This whole story began with a single trip in March 2024 — my first time traveling abroad alone, to Macau and Hong Kong. It was there that I met my true self for the first time, and after coming home, I spent a long while wondering how to carry that self into everyday life. What grew out of that wondering is this very story.

1.I Wasn't Even Supposed to Go

It started with my sister's air miles. She'd planned a trip to Macau and Hong Kong with our father and booked the flights. There was a reason behind the destination: our father had once been to Las Vegas and wanted to go back — the memory had stayed sweet with him. But returning to the States isn't easy, so Macau became the stand-in, with Hong Kong folded into the itinerary.

I wasn't meant to be part of it. But my husband encouraged me — "a trip between a father and daughter would mean something" — and so I joined at the last minute. That's why my ticket was separate from theirs. Since I was going anyway, they told me to stay a little longer: I'd fly in first and leave a few days after.

Around then, my sister was buried in work writing a book. So the planning — mapping out routes, hunting down restaurants, sorting the schedule — mostly fell to me. I didn't know it then, but I'd come to be so grateful it had.

At last the preparations were done, and the night I was packing with a fluttering heart, my sister called. She couldn't come. During a meal, someone carrying hot soup overhead had spilled it on her, burning her forehead. The doctor said travel wouldn't be possible. The day before departure, the trip was falling apart.

I was worried and thrown off. I'd always leaned on my sister, and it unsettled me that the very person who'd arranged this trip would now be missing from it. Being alone with my father felt awkward, too. The weight of having to take full responsibility for him pressed down on me.

My relationship with my father was never quite easy. We were father and daughter, but he was a man of few words, and having taken after him, so was I. An awkward closeness, you might say. On top of that, his hearing wasn't good and my voice tends to be soft, so even talking came with its own friction.

And so, carrying all this worry, my first solo journey began.

2.Alone in a Strange City

I left Incheon with my family seeing me off. Traveling without my husband, my son, and my daughter was a first, and it felt strange — trailed by a faint sense of guilt.

The moment I landed in Macau, it hit me: there was no one to lean on now. I'm not good at English. Abroad, communicating in English had always been my husband's job. But this time, I had to ask for directions myself, in my broken English. The route to my lodging meant transferring between two free shuttles, a tangled path, and I stumbled my way through it, barely.

Off the shuttle, I opened Google Maps. But the map kept betraying me. It insisted this was the way, yet no matter how far I walked, nothing appeared. Through narrow, uneven alleys, weaving past crowds, I wandered with a map that wouldn't line up. Finally I asked someone who looked like a local police officer — and my lodging was right there beside me. The map had told me to go one more block.

And so, entirely on my own, I checked in for the first time.

3.Scouting Ahead — From Backup to Lead

I was tired when I reached the hotel, but I dropped my bags and headed straight back out. My father would arrive soon, and I had to guide him — which meant I needed to walk the ground myself at least once.

My father has a herniated disc, with pain in his lower back and legs that keeps him from walking long distances. So finding the gentlest routes to each destination mattered. So did knowing where the restaurants and the main sights were. Map in hand, I scouted the paths we'd walk together, one by one.

And then something strange happened. The whole time I was scouting, I felt a curious thrill, a quiet elation. The small satisfaction of reading a map and actually finding the way. The unfamiliar stimulations I drank in through my eyes, through all five senses, as my feet traced every corner of those narrow streets. It was as if the city was waking, one by one, the cells that had lain dormant in me. And in that moment I realized: I'm actually rather good at finding my way, and I enjoy new experiences.

Once I'd learned the city, I went to meet my father, who arrived late at night, at the airport. Beforehand, worry had crept in — what if it's awkward, just the two of us? But the instant I met him in that unfamiliar city, the worry dissolved, and in its place came a flutter of excitement.

On the way back to our lodging, I began telling him about the city, about tomorrow's plans, like a guide. And to my surprise, the conversation flowed. Before I knew it, the awkwardness had turned to warmth, and then to the closeness of travel companions. From a relationship where I'd only ever received as a daughter, I'd become, for the first time, someone who could give something to my father. That quiet sense of fulfillment spread with the lights passing outside the late-night bus.

And so the first day drew to a close.

4.Macau — Wearing Its Splendor

The next morning, we set out to explore in earnest. Thanks to my scouting the day before, my mind was at ease. With the confidence that scouting had given me, I led my father through the streets without hesitation.

Macau won me over. A landscape shaped by a long colonial history, a city where the light and shadow of its casinos mingled. Even that interplay of brightness and dark was, to me, all good stimulation. And happily, my father took the city in fully too — that alone set my heart at rest.

From there we moved to a resort in Cotai for a short staycation. Beneath the glittering lights, I forgot reality for a while and wore that splendor like a borrowed coat. And so our three days and two nights, too, glimmered and faded. Promising ourselves we'd return one day with the family who couldn't come, we set off for Hong Kong.

5.Hong Kong — Falling in Love

We crossed from Macau to Hong Kong by bus. The two cities are joined by a long bridge, so the journey could be made by land. As we crossed that long, wondrous bridge, a thrill of moving on to a new destination rose in me. Hong Kong's air was unmistakably different. Now it was truly a new beginning.

There was one worry. In Macau I'd had time to scout ahead, but Hong Kong was new to me too, so my father and I would have to find our way together. Still, with the confidence already in me, it was no great problem. Let's do this.

Here's how I managed it. Before locating each destination, I'd have my father wait a moment while I found the way first, then came back to bring him along. Afraid he might tire from wandering on his aching legs, I walked the distance twice over to spare his. And in doing so I realized one more thing: I walk better than I thought, and I'm strong. Truly, this was a journey that kept letting me discover a new self.

Hong Kong had a charm all its own, different from Macau. Dense forests of buildings, streets where present and past lived side by side. Worn but never grimy, and effortlessly cool. A place where the refined and the vintage came together in perfect harmony. It was free. Just being there, I felt free. And so, very quickly, I fell in love with this city.

6.Hong Kong with My Father — A Period at the End

My father and I roamed the city on foot. We walked the narrow alleys, dodging the crowds, and settled into a corner of some old, long-standing shop to taste the years steeped into it. Before the night view, we talked of this and that.

And then a thought came to me. Someday, on the last day I part with my father in this world, I'll remember this night. "Dad, do you remember when we sat looking out at the Hong Kong night and talked? I was so happy then. Thank you — for being my father." That's what I'll say.

The feelings that had gone unresolved for so long in my relationship with my father quietly tied themselves off that night, and came to a close.

There's one scene among them I can't forget. Coming down from Victoria Peak after seeing the night view, we spotted a passing tram and, on a whim, climbed aboard with my father. The front seats on the upper deck were empty, so we sat there, and the winding, precarious ride through the forest of buildings felt like a fairground attraction. The sensation of riding something old through the present. Of past and present flowing as one body. Later, when I asked my father what he remembered most about Hong Kong, he named this tram first.

And so Hong Kong with my father drew to a close. Now it was time for him to head back to Korea first.

7.Hong Kong, Alone — Being Alive

After seeing my father off, I was alone again. Now I could take in Hong Kong entirely on my own and then go home.

What I chose was to walk. The streets I'd seen in films, the familiar alleys from travel shows — I walked them, and walked them again. I wanted to feel as I walked. And I captured those moments with my camera. My own way of seeing.

I used to be someone who couldn't even manage a meal alone at a restaurant. But now I ate alone, had dessert alone, breaking the fear of being alone one piece at a time, doing so many things for the first time. And even so, in a corner of my heart, I pictured the day I'd return here with the people I love.

The day before the trip ended. That day was my birthday.

My first birthday spent alone. And the place I went was Hong Kong Disneyland. To a place I'd never go alone — and on my birthday, no less. The reason, again, was scouting. If I'm ever to bring my son and daughter here someday, I should go first and see it for myself.

Coming alone to an amusement park I'd always visited holding my children's hands felt a little strange, but it wasn't bad. I rode the attractions my young daughter couldn't ride yet, and spent a whole day purely for myself, without the labor of looking after anyone. That alone was a wonderful birthday gift. I stayed through the final show and returned to my lodging late at night.

But something tugged at a corner of my heart. It was my father's unfulfilled wish.

Before returning home, my father had wanted to give a gift to someone he was always grateful to. There was a traditional Chinese tea set he'd had his eye on throughout the trip, but between the price and his uncertainty over whether it was the right choice, he'd hesitated and gone home without buying it. That had weighed on me all along.

Late that night, I searched for a shop near my lodging to buy that tea set. The store where he'd first seen it was too far to reach before my departure the next day. Fortunately, there was a shop close by. But when I calculated its opening time against when I had to leave for the airport, it was truly tight. I'd have to buy it fast and set off at once. I nearly gave up — but my father's hesitant eyes lingered in my mind, and so, let's try, I told myself, and quickened my steps. Fortunately the shop had it, and I made it to the airport in time.

Back in Korea, when I handed it to my father, there was that look of satisfaction on his face. Seeing it, my own heart felt fuller than I can say.

8.Seoul — Someone Who Travels Every Day

I'm in Seoul. The Seoul where I've put down my roots and live my life.

A trip has an end; everyday life goes on. I had returned to the ordinary. For the first few days, the dopamine of travel lingered. That good tension from being away still held. But it, too, had an expiration date, and it faded fast.

The repeating routines of daily life gave me a sense of safety, yet in a corner of my heart, a quiet melancholy welled up. The me who'd been so alive while traveling — why was I so listless in ordinary life? The stark contrast raised a question. Was it simply a matter of traveling or not? Or was there something more fundamental beneath it?

I looked back at the way I approached life. And I thought: couldn't everyday life be happy and full of anticipation, like travel? Couldn't I discover a new self each day, and meet a me that grows a little better with every passing day? What if the way I looked at life shifted, just slightly? The safety of being rooted in one place, and the thrill of a traveler. What would a life where these two coexist be like?

And as I thought, the Seoul where I was born and raised began, all at once, to look different.

Ah — someone out there will come to this Seoul as a traveler. It's surely on someone's list of places they long to visit. A place someone wants to come to but can't — and here I am, living in it.

Then let me live treating Seoul as my own destination.

Every day, I travel. I live my everyday like a traveler. Right here, in Seoul.