We traveled for a year. Then, in July 2017, Eric and I returned to my village in the French Alps, my “original place”. The following is a journal entry that I recently unearthed, which I composed about a week after our return. It captures acute feelings of confusion and longing. Closing the chapter on traveling was a time of radical change after months spent exploring the world with profound abandonment. Following this passage are some of my favorite images from the trip, helping to depict the contrasting landscapes and livelihoods we grappled with along the way.
“Everything has become hazy, my whole year, which was my whole life. Being back among friends and family suddenly overwhelms me and interferes with my ability to remember what came just before. I feel like I’ve been ripped from one world and into another, and though I’m still just at the limit of my previous life, I can hardly remember it… mind gone blank. The only piece of continuity is Eric. He confirms I didn’t just dream it all by telling the same stories I do. Back in my original place, I can hardly believe how green everything is, how neat, how functional, how spotless. I have to shield my face from the glare. And then I fall so deeply back in love with the fields, the woods, the mountains, the people, my own folk.
I pry open the backpack I had cast aside upon return a week ago and pull from it all my former “only-belongings”. I’m frightened when I find that I have already forgotten that I ever owned such things – a blue shawl, a thick red sweater – things I had used, touched, and carried for 300 days or more. I am awed by the places that they conjure. Only when Eric wraps the red and white shemagh around his head resembling a Bedouin do I come to terms with the magnitude of the change that I have just pushed myself through. Those Bedouin men are still there, heads wrapped, long-robed, in the desert sand, among the rocks that surround their crumbling village. I could be back there in a day, but I feel a million worlds away.”
The first light of day touches the Matterhorn, which we viewed from the Dent Blanche, a nearby peak in Switzerland. Photo by Katy Chappaz.At the Taj Mahal in Agra, India. Photo by Eric Hengesbaugh.A young giraffe in Kruger National Park, South Africa. We took some time to adjust to viewing nature from the confines of a vehicle. But with guidebooks and binoculars in our laps, after five days in the park we were especially proud of our car-based birdwatching skills. Photo by Katy Chappaz.
Inside Nairobi’s brand new central station, we wait to board the fourth ever train service. The station, built and operated in partnership with the Chinese, was modern and impeccable, a stark contrast with the surrounding city. Photo by Katy Chappaz.Past and present. The city of Cairo stretches out into the distance behind the Pyramid of Menkaure, in Giza. Photo by Katy Chappaz.Giant Lobelia on the slopes of Mount Kenya. Photo by Katy Chappaz.Kids race to be in my picture in Varanasi, India, as I stand photographing the Ganges. Photo by Katy Chappaz.Eric contemplates graffiti on the Palestinian side of the border with Israel. Photo by Katy Chappaz.Vividly lush tea plantations in the Western Ghats, India. It was not unusual to come upon wild elephant dung as we meandered along the paths. Photo by Katy Chappaz.In the north-western state of Rajasthan, India. Viewing the blue, desert city of Jodhpur from the Mehrangarh Fort. Photo by Katy Chappaz.A gorgeous day in Cape Town, South Africa. Photo by Katy Chappaz.A small village near Manaslu Himal in Nepal. Photo by Katy Chappaz.Rich dune vegetation and the stunning coastline of Plettenberg Bay, South Africa. Photo by Katy Chappaz.Train tracks bisect Nairobi’s Kibera slum, one of the biggest in Africa. Photo by Katy Chappaz.In Rajasthan, Northern India, at the start of a thirty-hour train trip across the country. Photo by Eric Hengesbaugh.Golden light filters through the towering acacia’s that shelter our campsite on the shores of Lake Naivasha, Kenya. Signs nearby warn of hippos. In the morning we are awoken by the booming call of Black-and-white Colobus monkeys as they wander about the treetops. Photo by Katy Chappaz.That traveler’s gaze – knowing to be at peace with what is. Pondicherry, India. Selfie by Katy Chappaz.Yawn. In Hoedspruit, South Africa. Photo by Katy Chappaz.Enjoying a watering hole in Addo Elephant National Park, South Africa. Photo by Katy Chappaz.Kevin pays a visit to Ganesha, the Hindu deity who’s head was replaced with an elephant’s, in Hampi, India. Photo by Katy Chappaz.Traffic during a festival in Kathmandu. Photo by Katy Chappaz.Salt has crystalized on the rocky Israeli shore of the Dead Sea. In the distance, mountains in Jordan are aglow with late afternoon sun. Photo by Katy Chappaz.A woman harvests millet in Nepal. Photo by Katy Chappaz.A neighborhood in Amman, Jordan’s capital. Photo by Katy Chappaz.Surely an enchanted forest in Hogsback, South Africa. Photo by Katy Chappaz.Temples to contemplate and rocks to climb in Hampi, India. Photo by Katy Chappaz.Exquisite Lake Naivasha in the Great Rift Valley, Kenya. Photo by Katy Chappaz.The full moon rises over a dune during a festival in the Thar Desert, India. Photo by Katy Chappaz.Gazing over a portion of the Kruger National Park. Photo by Katy Chappaz.In Wadi Rum, Jordan, the sun sets over one of our last days as world nomads. Photo by Katy Chappaz.Home, sweet home. A flower-filled alpine village in France. Photo by Katy Chappaz.During a climbing trip in France. Wildflowers fill the mountainside as we descend towards the village of La Berarde. Photo by Katy Chappaz.Golden Hour during a mountaineering trip in the Massif des Ecrins, France. Photo by Katy Chappaz.
Stars, like salt. 
Gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous. Exquisite journal blurb, enchanting images. Thanks for sharing.
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