Decades ago, I traveled alone for the first time in my life. The trip to Colorado was not for business or family reasons, but just to travel and ________.

As I prepared for it, I felt excited and ________ at the same time. Would it be fun? Would I be bored? Would I stay in bed all day or would I jump with excitement to do the next thing? I wasn’t ________. Little did I know that it was going to be so ________ a journey of self-discovery.

As a good wife and mom, for me, travel is always about the ________: Always thinking of who would ________ what. Because it’s about family time. But when travel ________, who would I connect with? What would I do? Well, I found that I got to do anything I ________!

While traveling, I met locals and also other ________. Honestly, I had conversations ________—on planes, while hiking, in restaurants.

It was quite a(n) ________ experience to meet a mom of 18 kids and hundreds of adopted kids, a cookie baker, and an internationally ranked marathon runner. The inspiring stories I discovered were ________ and nothing was like my wonderful and ________ life at home. I got to go rock climbing by myself, go hiking solo, and eat ________. And it was all ________, going smoothly. Actually, I felt surprisingly ________.

It was just me, my SUV and my backpack for a week. ________, it was a breath of fresh air that I didn’t ________ existed. It’s wonderful to be back home and know that possibilities are ________ and there is so much more out there to ________ and discover!

Last summer, I had just enough money saved to buy a golden ticket—a 3-month train pass that would take me to the furthest reaches of Europe. Excited for my journey, I_______all the necessities—_______the guidebook.

While the_______of the Internet was surely a contributing factor to my_______not to take with me kilograms of out-of-date information, this was not the only reason why I decided to fly_______

To be honest, I find the guidebook_______of a journey—like a bossy aunt who is always telling you what to do,_______she doesn’t always know what is the best._______has taught me that there is a clear_______between a tourist and a traveler.

While waiting in a queue to see Michelangelo’s Statue of David in Florence, I met a man who showed me his________of “Top 20 Things To Do in Italy” and told us________that he’d seen everything Italy has to________in just four days.

The problem I had with this man’s way of________was that he was too focused on________the boxes provided by his guidebook. He was________in the so-called “must-sees” and blind to all that was happening in the real trip.

So, guidebook-less as we were,my companion and I traveled to Estonia. Arriving without advance plans, we had no choice but to________to some friendly faces for advice. We________ourselves and asked them what was happening around the town. When this resulted in an________we enjoyed a 110-degree wood-stove sauna（桑拿浴）, to a beautiful Estonian home by a river where________picked forest-mushrooms and the good________of our five new-found Estonian friends, we sure were glad we had left our bossy aunt at home.

Recently we took a trip to the South of France. As my parents are both ________, they decided to take me along on their artist residency program, ________ in the charming city of Arles in the Provence region, which is famous as the town where Vincent van Gogh ________ some of his most famous works.

We ________ from Switzerland on a French train. It ran well and was ________, and we easily found taxis ________ outside the Arles train station. Our apartment was located on Rue de la Calade, a ________ street in the center of the city. It was ________—with stone floors, well-kept rooms, and friendly neighbors. Our first day in Arles was ________ walking around and just getting a feel of the area. We had ________ our apartment for three weeks!

The first day’s ________ we took outside of Arles was to St. Rémy, where van Gogh once ________ in a mental hospital while still painting some of his most beloved ________. Today you can visit all the places that he painted at although they aren’t as completely ________ as they used to be. St. Rémy is a beautiful little town, though—lots of places to ________.

My family and I took a day tour to the Camargue, a nearby nature ________, which is France’s wild west, our last week in Arles. We got the ________ we had booked through the Arles tourist office, which can sometimes be ________. The tour was, although a little long, beautiful in every way. If in the South of France, I ________ recommend visiting the Camargue.

So overall, Arles and the South of France is excellent. ________ stopping for some days!