I'm packing my bag, I'm saying goodbye to my family and the majority of my friends, I'm getting on the airplane and I'm going away for a year or more. Next to me is one of my best friends, whom I've traveled with before. He understands me — we go through everything together — and it never gets lonely or boring when I’m with him.

We start from across the world in Asia, and we work our way back to the U.S. We meet new people in every city, and we acquaint ourselves with them. We fall in love with new places and people, and our hearts break when we have to part. We realize that home doesn’t need to be one’s house because we find pieces of home everywhere.  

We wake up early everyday to eat a hotel breakfast or to find a new restaurant our taste buds have never touched upon. We look up exciting sites in that city, and we go — no tour guide, no forced destinations, nothing. We tire ourselves out, so we take a quick nap during the afternoon, but by night, we’re wide awake, ready to go out once again.

It’s been a few hours into the night and it’s now 2 a.m.; we’re running on the streets like wild men dying to live. Two hours later, it’s 4 a.m., and we’ve said our goodbyes to strangers that became friends as the realization that we’ll never meet again dawns on us. At 5 a.m., my best friend and I are finally calling it a night and returning to our hotel. We’re wiped out, tired and ready to crash, but we’re happy.

So, what would I do if I won the lottery? I wrote this five months ago and still stay true to it:

I want to travel to new places with city lights and crowded streets humming with people, and I want to see the moon through the lights of buildings. I imagine walking on the side of the road at 3 a.m. with strangers and people I love, overwhelmed with the endless possibilities of being able to do anything and everything. Although we may be sleep-deprived — you can see our heavy eye bags — our eyes glisten with wanderlust mixed with satisfaction.