Writer: Anki Palerby Hjelmqwist
Freedom can be many things. For some, it’s about the opportunity to travel anywhere, anytime – a ticket in hand, a new horizon in sight and, most importantly, a new adventure. For others, freedom is more subtle, more of an inner desire: a sense of being able to choose their own pace, their own paths, their own peace.
And perhaps that is exactly what traveling is about: looking for the places, external or internal, where we replenish our energy reserves. Those places that make us breathe deeper, feel more alive – and sometimes even more at home than we ever felt in the place we actually call home.
The water as a refuge
I first understood the power of nature, and especially water, during a chaotic time in life. When everything around me was storming, when everyday life felt too tight, I got in the car and drove. Without goals, but with the feeling that I would end up somewhere. I almost always ended up near water.
There, alone on a jetty or on a bench by a bay, I found something that I didn’t find anywhere else. I could lie on my back and follow the slow passage of the clouds, listen to the mantle to the bridge, or simply focus my eyes on the sun’s sparkle on the waves. Those moments gave me a kind of peace that nothing else could give. As if the water washed away the worst of my unrest and filled me with the energy I needed to return home and meet life again.
The sea like home
A few years later, the sea became even more than a refuge: it became a home. I discovered long sailing: a journey where the journey itself is the goal, where the boat becomes the means of transport, the home and safety.
With a captain by my side, in a relationship based on trust instead of chaos, I found a new kind of freedom. After only a few days at sea, the importance of that time ceased. Weekdays and dates melted away, and there was only the rhythm of wind, waves and light.
Here nature decides. The wind determines when we can continue sailing, the weather sometimes forces us to wait for days, even weeks. But waiting is not a limitation, but part of freedom. A reminder that life doesn’t always have to be governed by time and schedules. And sometimes it’s the little one’s luxury to be able to say, “We’ll go into this bay instead.”
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A lisa for the soul
The feeling of dropping anchor in a quiet bay is difficult to describe. Just us, the boat and nature. A few days where the sun is our watch and the sea is our shower. Two steps away from the breakfast table in the cockpit and we can throw ourselves into the bright blue.
The most pushy? Every evening a discreet call on the mobile that reminds us to water the basil on deck.
And then the contrast: heading towards new ports after the silence of loneliness where friends wait. Sharing laughter, meals and memories. Freedom lies as much in the exchange as in the journey itself – between silence and community, between silence and voices, between the personal and the shared.
The many faces of freedom
But freedom while traveling looks different for all of us. Some of my friends find their energy in the mountains, on long walks among the rock and mountain streams. Others in a canoe, in the forest, in the camper or on horseback. Someone feels freest during a dog walk at sunrise, another in front of the fire with a book.
Freedom can be silence. It could be movement. It could be loneliness or community.
The journey as an encounter
For me the most important thing is meeting people. Sharing a conversation that goes into depth, listening and opening up to what is different, both what challenges and what unites.
Because ultimately freedom is perhaps not just being able to travel – but daring to encounter the world, other people and oneself, with open eyes and an open heart.
Anki is a freelance writer, writer and digital life coach who loves to travel. She has lived in several countries such as Lebanon, Poland, Egypt and Morocco, and later became a full-time long-term sailor (despite her recurring seasickness!) after meeting husband Janne. With the boat Lazy Frog they sailed from Sweden along the Atlantic coast to the Canary Islands and Madeira and are currently in the Mediterranean Sea, in Sicily. Join her on an adventure, both on land and at sea!
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