I spent a year living in 12 countries. The questions that came up changed how I see the world.

A few years ago, I traded my Manhattan apartment for a one-way ticket to Peru and spent a year living and working across 12 countries. I meditated with a barefoot Buddhist monk in Thailand, channeled the fearless passion of flamenco dancers in Spain and clung to the back of a motorbike through the streets of Vietnam.

That experience became the basis for my new memoir, The Scenic Route: Following My Inner Compass Across 12 Countries in 12 Months . Looking back, the most valuable things I brought home weren't the stories themselves, but the questions they taught me to ask along the way.

What if depth matters more than distance?

When I arrived in Peru, the other travelers I met wasted no time sharing what was on their bucket lists. "Hiking to Machu Picchu is obviously at the top of mine," said one woman. "I've heard sandboarding in Huacachina is incredible," said another. Someone wanted to surf the Pacific waves in Lima, and someone else wanted to eat at Central, one of the most famous restaurants in the world.

As the WhatsApp messages poured in, I realized I hadn't made my own list.

Between convincing my company's CEO to let me work remotely for a year and packing my life into two suitcases, I'd barely had time to think about what I wanted to do once I arrived. So I decided that until I figured out what belonged on my own list, I'd happily help everyone else fulfill theirs.

After hiking through the Andes, surfing Lima's Pacific coast and sandboarding down the desert dunes of Huacachina, I eventually sat down to a 14-course meal at Central. I stared in shock at the five piranha heads on my plate as our waiter explained that each course represented a different elevation and ecosystem of the country.

"Think of this menu as descending and ascending Peru's vertical layers," he said. "You're tasting our story, one altitude at a time." Until that moment, I'd been thinking about travel horizontally. How many countries could I visit? How many experiences could I fit into one year? But Central invited me to think differently. A horizontal journey covers more ground, but a vertical journey can reveal what lies beneath the surface.

What's worth returning to?

By the time I arrived in Croatia, I'd spent eight months chasing firsts: a new country, a new apartment, a new language and, most importantly, a new adventure.

On my first full workday in Split, a few of us noticed a golden light pouring through the windows of our coworking space. We walked across the street to the Adriatic and watched what was, without question, the most beautiful sunset I'd ever seen.

The next evening, we went back. And then again the evening after that. Before long, watching the sunset together had become our ritual. We'd shut our laptops, grab a snack, sit on the rocks and watch the kitesurfers dance across the horizon as the sky turned from coral to lavender.

One evening, after what must have been our fifteenth time doing this, I turned to my friends. "Isn't it strange?" I asked. "We've watched this sunset almost every day, and somehow I think I appreciate it more now than I did the first time."

That conversation stayed with me long after we left the rocks. I'd spent most of the year asking, What's next? But Croatia made me wonder if I'd been overlooking the value of rituals.

Some experiences become meaningful because they're new. Others become meaningful because we choose them again and again. It made me wonder what routines and rituals I would want to create once I got back home. Instead of always wondering, What's new? Croatia invited me to ask, What's worth returning to?

Who am I when I'm not trying to be anything?

I sat cross-legged on the floor of a Buddhist temple in Chiang Mai as a monk slowly scanned the room. "Where are you?" he asked. "Not in Thailand. Not in this room. At this moment, where is your mind?"

I immediately drifted to the drag cabaret we visited the night before. The contrast was so absurd that I had to stop myself from laughing. We'd met several of the performers before the show, and every time one of them stepped under the stage lights, our table erupted into cheers. We weren't watching strangers — we were rooting for people whose stories we'd come to know.

Now, sitting in complete silence with the monk, I couldn't stop replaying the contrast. Watching him, I found myself thinking about the freedom that can come from loosening our attachment to identity. Watching the performers, I wondered if freedom could also come from boldly expressing it.

At first, they felt like opposites. But I wondered if they were simply different paths to the same place. Maybe freedom isn't found solely by letting go of identity or by declaring it. Maybe there is no single version of ourselves. Thailand reminded me that identity isn't something you find once. It's something you're allowed to keep becoming.

What we really bring home with us

Those were only three of the moments that stayed with me from that year. By the end of it, I realized each country I spent time in had handed me both a mirror and a map. Every place reflected some part of myself back to me, then pointed me toward new possibilities.

It turns out the greatest souvenir I brought back wasn't something I packed in my suitcase. It was learning that the quality of my life depended less on the answers I had than on the questions I was willing to keep asking, long after I'd returned home.

Those questions continue to shape how I travel, how I work and how I live. They're also just a few of the stories and reflections I explore in my book . You don't have to travel to 12 countries to find experiences that make you see your life differently. The next time you find yourself somewhere unfamiliar — whether by choice or by circumstance — pay attention to the questions that surface. They may tell you more about where you want to go next than any map ever could.