There’s an interesting process of returning home from a trip. Right as I’m nearing the end of my travels, I’m in a bittersweet place: I’m sad that my adventure is over, but I’m also tired. I’m ready to go home to my bed, my clean shower and toilet, to my friends and family. To comfort. To familiarity. But then, give me a week of rejuvenation, of real sleep again, and I’m ready to leave. Reverse culture shock hits and I’m wondering what the hell am I doing here back at home. This isn’t my world. Me and my backpack and the adventure of the unknown is my world.

Then I settle into the routine. The same one I was a part of before I left. I get busy. I work, make some money again, watch my savings slowly increase again. I anticipate my next trip, but it still seems far away. I get sucked into my home life, making dinner for my parents, not worrying about rent, catching up with friends, going out to bars, spending time at my favorite beaches. I begin to enjoy the familiar again.

When this happens, the fear returns. I know that I’m supposed to begin making moves. I have an un-bought flight looming in my mind. I tell myself that I’ll research on my next destination tomorrow. No, tomorrow. And, again, tomorrow. It becomes a second thought.

I’m afraid. I begin to doubt the unknown. At home I have security. I have food in the fridge, I have friends, I have free rent with my parents and I have a paycheck. I know that when I make the next move out in that mysterious world, I won’t have any of these securities. And the scariest thing is that my next trip is perhaps the most mysterious of all because I don’t know where exactly I’m going. All I’ve been telling my friends and family is that I’m going to South America to teach English. What school? I don’t know. I have to find one when I get there. Where will you live? I have no idea. Suddenly the idea gets scarier.

There comes a time when that long-needed push to make me take the next step is necessary. I need a reminder for why I wanted to take a one-way flight to South America in the first place. In this case, it was the documentary, 180 Degrees South.

Jeff Johnson and his crew of a professional surfer and world-class mountaineer embark on a sailing trip to Patagonia, picking up a new native friend from Easter Island after an unexpected storm on the sea, and climbing through the unforgiving Chilean landscape up to the peak of Corcovado. The documentary even features Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia Clothing Company, and Doug Tompkins, founder of The North Face. Watching Jeff jump into these unfamiliar waters, exploring through the wild mountains of Chile, eating handpicked clams beside a bonfire in lands that Tompkins bought from Chile in order to protect it from unforgiving growing industries, I felt a desire for the world and it’s foreign beauty all over again. I remembered why I travel. It is not only to discover its beauties, but to join those who recognize that beauty and want to preserve it and cherish it.

This incredible film shares so many pieces of wisdom, reminding us that we often forget what lies outside of our narcissistic bubble of our phones and social media, shutting everything out as we live day after day going to work, coming home to family and friends, and choosing to see only what’s in front of us. We forget that there is a deteriorating world out there. If we don’t see it, it’s easy to not think about it. And, God, there’s so much incredible beauty out there.

Traveling can sometimes be the hardest thing, but it’s also the simplest. It’s easy to fill your life up with unnecessary worries and drama. When you let yourself let go and give yourself up to the unknown world, you’re reminded what really feeds the human soul. It is the moment. The now. Take a look at what the world in front of you. What is really there. Those mountains, those trees, those stars, the ocean, the moon, the sun. It’s all there for you to cherish.

What struck straight to my heart while watching this film was hearing Jeff utter these words: that the greatest adventure is the unknown. Why am I so afraid? There’s no point to life if I don’t take that next step into the unknown. Because that’s what life is all about. And if things don’t work out? Well that’s where the term “180 degrees south” comes in. If you come to a roadblock, don’t think you have to take a step back. Instead, turn 180 degrees and take a step forward. 

Go ahead and check out the trailer. 180 Degrees South is also available on Netflix.