TRAVEL PLANS PT 2

The moment that changed me the most didn’t come from a postcard view or a famous landmark.

It came from silence — real silence. The kind you only get when you’re far away from everything you know, standing in a place where nobody knows your name and nobody expects anything from you.

That silence forced me to look at the world through a different lens.

Not the lens I grew up with — survival mode, routine, familiar streets, familiar faces.

But a new one.

A wider one.

A lens that showed me the truth: less is more… and sometimes being alone is exactly what you need to hear yourself again.

Traveling solo was something I never imagined doing. Not because I was scared — but because where I’m from, traveling alone isn’t really a thing. You move with your boys, your teammates, your family. You move in packs. You move with a purpose.

But being out there, on my own, changed the game for me.

I was waking up in different countries with nothing but my thoughts and a whole new world outside my window. I’d grab a book, grab my journal, go sit somewhere quiet, and just… breathe. Not the tight, quick breaths you take when you’re grinding or stressed. Real breaths. Full ones. The kind that make you realize you’ve been holding tension for years without even noticing.

I started reading more. Writing more. Thinking deeper.

Not about money or goals or stress — but about myself.

Who am I outside of basketball? Outside of Detroit? Outside of everything people expect me to be?

And being in these different places taught me more about myself than any motivational book ever could.

I’d watch families in certain countries working together like a real unit — grandparents, parents, kids, cousins — all moving as one. Owning businesses, running shops, cooking together, laughing together, holding the culture up together. It made me think about my own family, my city, my upbringing. Made me appreciate the love I had and the love I still have.

That’s when it hit me:

Travel isn’t just about seeing the world.

It’s about understanding the world.

And in the process, understanding yourself.

One of the destinations that surprised me the most was Toronto.

You’d think it wouldn’t hit me like that — it’s literally right next door to Detroit. A four-hour drive. A jump across the border. But the moment I got there, it felt like a completely different universe.

The city is alive in its own way. Big buildings, loud energy, clean streets, people everywhere. And the diversity there? On another level. From the people I met to the neighborhoods I walked through, everything felt like a mix — cultures blending, communities merging, voices from everywhere living together like it’s nothing.

I spent hours just walking — block after block after block. You know me, I like to move, to really see a city. Restaurants, corner stores, alleyways with murals, cafes full of people working on dreams I’ll never know about. Toronto felt like a place you could live five different lives and never get bored.

But the wildest part of that whole trip had nothing to do with the skyline or the food.

It was the conversations.

I don’t know what kind of energy I had on me, but it was like people were drawn to talk to me. And not small talk either — real conversations. Conversations with depth. Conversations that made me think.

I talked to doctors. Business owners. Real estate investors. Parents. College kids. People grinding. People struggling. People thriving. People dreaming. And we weren’t talking about weather or basketball. We were talking about life — what they believed in, what they feared, what they were chasing, what they had lost. Stuff strangers usually keep to themselves.

Some conversations lasted minutes. Others lasted hours.

Some were on buses.

Some while walking on tours.

Some sitting on benches or outside restaurants.

No cameras. No followers. No expectations. Just human-to-human connection.

It made me realize something crazy:

Sometimes strangers know how to speak to your soul better than people you’ve known for years.

Because they see you without history.

Without assumptions.

Without who-you-used-to-be.

They just see you as you are in that moment.

And that right there?

That changed me.

Somewhere along these trips, I left behind a fear I didn’t even realize I had — the fear of staying in my comfort zone. The fear of routine. The fear of living the same year over and over again and calling it “life.”

When you travel, you’re forced to try new things.

New food. New languages. New ways of thinking.

You learn that every place has its own rhythm — its own heartbeat — and that there are millions of ways to live.

Millions of ways to be human.

Travel made me more open.

More flexible.

More curious.

More willing to let go of the old version of me so I could become the newer one.

And when I think about my son?

What I want him to see?

Man… it’s not just one place.

People expect me to pick a city or a country — like, “Oh, you gotta take him to Jamaica first,” or “You gotta take him to Spain,” or “He should see Amsterdam early.”

But the truth is… I want him to see everything.

Not just the places I’ve been, but the places I haven’t touched yet either.

I want him to experience the world without limits.

Without fear.

Without waiting on somebody to go with him.

I want him to feel what I felt — that moment when your breath catches because you realize the world is big and beautiful and full of lessons you never knew you needed.

So when I say I can’t wait to take him somewhere, I mean somewhere new.

Somewhere fresh.

Somewhere unfamiliar to both of us.

A place where we’re both learning, both exploring, both stepping into something bigger than ourselves.

That’s the part that excites me:

creating new memories,

in new places,

with new perspectives,

for a new generation.

Because at the end of the day, traveling has become more than just planes and hotels for me.

It’s become a teacher.

A mirror.

A reminder that life is too big to stay in the same place — mentally, emotionally, or physically.

I’m still growing.

Still learning.

Still discovering pieces of myself in places I never expected.

And this journey is far from over.

There are still countries calling my name.

Still languages I want to hear.

Still sunsets I haven’t seen.

Still people I haven’t met who might end up changing how I look at the world.

Travel Plans?!

Nah… it’s deeper than that now.

It’s Life Plans.

To see more.

To feel more.

To become more.

And to make sure the people I love — especially my son — get to experience that same magic in their own way, in their own time.

Because this world?

It’s too big, too wild, too beautiful to stay still.

And I’m nowhere near done exploring it.