As an undergraduate, I spent countless evenings hunched over Jack Kerouac’s books, telling myself that one day, I too would travel the world.

I wanted to be like Kerouac so badly that I even started drinking his favorite drink. I still remember the first time I ordered it at the student union bar.

The barmaid, a fellow student, was unimpressed.

“Vermouth? What the hell is that?”

“It’s a fortified wine,” I told her. “Kerouac used to drink it.”

“I don’t know who Kerouac is, but she sounds like a pain in the arse. Why couldn’t she just have a normal wine like everyone else?”

I spent the rest of the evening complaining about her to a friend.

“She’s probably never read a book in her life,” I moaned. “How can anyone not know who Kerouac is?”

“She must be studying something soulless like marketing. She probably thinks Hemingway was a girl too.”

At the time, we thought we were the coolest guys in the place. In retrospect, we were insufferable.

After university, I kept my promise to myself and traveled the world — an experience that taught me some valuable lessons I’ve carried ever since.

Lesson 1: You Don’t Matter as Much as You Think You Do

I was walking the streets of Hanoi, taking in the sights. Perhaps the Vietnamese girl in front of me was doing the same — because she failed to notice the crossing up ahead and collided head-on with a car.

People ran to help, but there was nothing they could do. She was already dead.

I lingered for 20 minutes in case a witness was needed. In that short time, an ambulance collected her body, the debris was cleared, and soon there was no trace of what had happened. People who knew nothing of the accident began to arrive — and before long, the street was filled with chatter and laughter again.

We like to think of ourselves as the center of the universe when, in reality, the world keeps spinning without us. That sounds morbid, but it needn’t be — realizing you don’t matter as much as you thought can be freeing. It allows you to take risks you might never have taken before.

Lesson 2: Everything Looks Better in the Photos

In Accra, my friend was having a bad day. In the morning, she’d fallen into an open sewer. At lunch, she’d downed some dodgy pineapple juice and spent two hours vomiting. Then, as if that weren’t enough, she’d been bitten by what looked like a thousand mosquitoes (or one very angry one).

Later that evening, we lay on the beach as she recounted her misery. But mid-rant, she noticed the setting sun.

“Quick,” she said. “Take a photo of me walking alone on this beach. It looks like paradise.”

She hauled herself up, clutched her rumbling stomach, and limped into the distance.

“You’re too far away,” I shouted. “I can hardly see your face.”

“Good!” she yelled back. “I don’t want everyone seeing the bites.”

Getting the perfect shot for social media is a huge part of modern travel, but before you let yourself slip into a jealous slump, remember — those photos never tell the full story.

Lesson 3: You Can’t Escape Yourself

People think traveling is a magical cure-all: that once they set foot in a foreign land, they’ll be happier, more laid-back, more free-spirited. But if you’re irritable at home, you’ll find things to be irritated by everywhere else — because no matter where you go, you always take your personality with you.

It’s a cliché, but the only journey that really matters is the one into yourself. The good news? You don’t need flights, hellhole hostels, or open sewers to take it. You can start from wherever you are now.

I doubt Kerouac would approve of the anti-travel philosophy I’m hinting at here — but I’m OK with that. Over the years, I’ve realized I’m not much like him after all. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Travel didn’t turn me into a wandering poet or a restless drifter. It didn’t unlock some hidden version of myself. What it did do was strip away the illusions I had about the world — and about me. I learned that no matter where I go, life still happens: people still get stuck in traffic, still stub their toes, still fall into open sewers. And no amount of palm trees or sunsets can change that.

But maybe that’s the real beauty of travel. Not that it transforms you into someone new, but that it brings you back to yourself — just with a little more perspective.

And besides, I never did like the taste of vermouth anyway.