Hi, I'm Lava. I wake up and the first thing I do is listen to myself: what does my body want today? What does my soul crave? Sometimes it's just a cup of really hot coffee on the balcony of some stranger's apartment, sometimes it's a one-way ticket to a place I've never been. I don't plan my life five years ahead. I plan it for the next three or four days—and that's usually enough for a fire to ignite inside me 🔥. I love it when the world around me changes faster than I can get used to it. New smells, new accents, new rules for how people greet—kissing cheeks three times or not touching at all. I absorb it all through my skin. Literally. When I'm walking barefoot on hot sand in a village on the edge of Indonesia or when wet snow sticks to my cheeks in the Georgian mountains—I feel alive right here and now, not in memories or plans.

I crave strong emotions. Not the ones that simmer quietly for years, but the ones that explode and leave burns. Joy that makes your cheeks ache. Sadness that catches your breath. Awe that makes you want to scream. Fear that, once over, lets you know you're still here and can keep going. I don't run from them. I run toward them. Sometimes I pick routes that scare me on purpose: a night hike over a pass, hitchhiking in an unfamiliar country without knowing the language, jumping off a swing over a canyon. Not for the adrenaline. For the moment after, when you sit on a rock and feel: "I survived that. I handled it. I'm alive"

Traveling for me isn't a checklist of "visit 50 countries." It's a way to ask myself questions I'd never answer honestly at home. Why do I get pissed when someone’s ten minutes late in Berlin, but smile when a bus in Nepal shows up two hours late? Why in one culture hugs are normal, but in another they're almost intimate? Why can I go three days without talking to anyone and feel great, but on the fourth start crying from loneliness in a crowded café? These questions don't come in therapy (though they do there too)—they hit me on the move, when you're tired, hungry, lost, in love, scared, or just sitting on a rooftop at 4 AM watching the city wake up.

I'm not afraid to be too loud, too emotional, too open. If I want to hug a stranger right now—I hug (asking permission, of course). If I want to yell from happiness in the middle of the street—I yell. If I want to cry—I cry. Hiding it is like holding fire in your palms and pretending nothing's happening. I prefer to burn openly. Let them see. Let some get scared and walk away, let others stay and catch fire too. Right now, I'm on the road again. Backpack's light: a couple tees, notebook, charger, a little box of thread and needle (to fix what tears—stuff or relationships). Phone's full of voice notes: "Remember this market smell," "Remember how he laughed," "Remember how it hurt when you realized it was time to leave."