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Madalena Travels
@madalena_travels
Landscape photographer based in Portugal
My love for traveling started in Canada when I was eight years old. It was my first trip abroad and I remember vividly ‘til this day what I felt when I first stepped foot in one of Toronto’s neighborhoods. It was such a surreal moment of seeing in firsthand a reality that was different than mine, while at the same time recognizing the neighborhoods that we would constantly see on TV. After that, and throughout the years, I traveled with my family and friends, until I got to a point where I just couldn’t stop traveling anymore, whether that was solo or with someone.
It’s true what they say. The more you travel, the more you feel that urge to get out of your comfort zone, feel humble when meeting other cultures and learn from every experience that comes in your way. The adrenaline rush and high you get from traveling is really hard to beat.
"I truly believe that we are not seeking the meaning of life, but rather the experiences that make us feel alive."
"Life gives you a series of moments, people and challenges that shape you into being who you are and who you want to be."
One may have a bigger impact than another, but each is significant. When I was young, I used to go to summer camp every year. I never realized until a few weeks ago how much of an impact that had on me; that simple life and raw experience of taking long baths in the river, sleeping in tents and gathering around a fire. I really think this set the foundations of the adventurous person I am today. Without it, I probably would have turned into a completely different person.
Besides that, my favorite trip to date – to the southwest of the United States – had a clear transformative effect on me too. I don’t know what it is, but the feeling of freedom you get from listening to music and singing out loud while road-tripping in those endless sceneries of wilderness and terracotta deserts is unmeasurable and indescribable. It triggered something in me – this need for escapism and freedom that I so desperately need.
My passion for adventure grew as I got older, but these two experiences are really special to me and had a huge impact on how I see life today and what I want my path to be. I want to be free from what people try to make me be. I love to laugh, feel free and be alive. I think throughout my life I’ve always struggled with people trying me to be someone I’m not or trying to put me in a specific box.
"People create this illusion and expectation of you – what you should do, think or behave – which easily becomes overpowering."
I know most of the times your loved ones don’t realize they do that, but they do, and society does it too. Everything is imposed on us. We’re expected to have a certain lifestyle, live a life that’s within the patterns of society and achieve specific levels of success regarding education, jobs and money. And to be honest, even though there’s always room for improvement, I did all of that – the degree, the job, the money – and with pleasure. I wanted to have those achievements for myself. However, the thing I struggle with the most is when you’re not allowed to go on a path that is somehow different or when people have too many opinions on things they don’t really know about. And then trying to make you believe that they are right and you’re wrong.
"What I’ve learned in the past year is that you can never please everyone."
Even if we have an amazing support system, there’re always people who are going to judge or try to overpower you. So I’ve been making a great effort to not listen to those voices and establish a distance between me and the people who have a negative effect on me. Because, if we try to please everyone’s opinion and judgment, we’ll end up with nothing but misery. Holding back to please everyone is a recipe for disaster.
And I truly believe that’s one of the main reasons why I love to travel. Because in total honesty, traveling is also a way to feel freer and to get away from judgment and expectations. I think everyone feels this way at some point in their lives.
"We all have this lurking desire of freedom beneath our civilizational chains, but some people just don’t realize it."
"As I traveled, I started blogging and photographing and this passion has developed throughout the years. And the more I get into it, the more I want to learn about it."
“The earth is art, the photographer is only a witness”, resonates so much with me. I want to do justice and capture what I witness in real life, that form of art, in the best possible way. Photography has the capacity to tell you a story and to transport you to faraway places. And if I feel I’m not translating that beauty and that memory perfectly, I try to understand what I can do to improve. So I’m learning more with tutorials, looking at professional courses and in the process of buying two more lenses. But one thing at a time.
As someone with a full-time job, balancing travel, photography, blogging, social media and now adding videography to the equation, while managing to have a social life and give time to other passions of mine (e.g. learning to play drums), it’s really hard at times. It’s a constant battle I have with myself. It requires a lot of dedication and perseverance and I have to give up a lot of my free time on the weekends and at the end of a workday.
"Whenever I’m not accomplishing what I have on my to do’s list that keeps on growing, I feel I’m neglecting my passion and this opportunity I have to share insightful tips with a community of like-minded people."
It gets overwhelming at times especially because I do all of this by myself. Sometimes I find myself comparing – why someone has more content than me, better photos than me, knows how to edit videos better than me… But instead of feeling frustrated, why not feeling inspired? I always try to seek perfection in everything I do. But there’s a fine line between seeking perfection and demanding too much of ourselves.
There’s no point in getting frustrated or having a heart attack over it, especially not if it is supposed to be your passion and if you are doing all of it on your own. It’s still a process, I’ve learned to celebrate the little conquests and to accept that tomorrow is another day. Each time I’ll get better. We have a huge learning curve within ourselves, we’ve just got to realize that everything is a journey. A journey of tons of work, but also of intense growth.
"I write blogs to reflect and write down my experiences for myself on the one hand, but also for others."
I want to pass on information as completely and real as possible, while being open and conveying this feeling of happiness and freedom you get from traveling. Besides detailed travel guides, I think my tips on how to travel more with a full-time job, how to save money, how to travel on a budget, etc. can add great value so people can travel more and experience a little bit of everything that our beautiful world has to offer. And since I’m also a solo traveler (not always but most of the time nowadays), I know I can inspire other girls/women to be brave and adventure by themselves. There are still so many preconceptions around solo traveling: ‘Traveling solo? I think I would be bored on the first day”, ‘I’m not brave enough’, ‘I don’t think it is for me’, ‘How do you find the courage?’.
"I think I just reached a point in my life where I realized that we all have different priorities so I’m not going to wait around to see if someone wants to join me on a trip or not."
Unfortunately, a lot of people still don’t find the courage to do it. I hope I can give a new perspective on this amazing experience. Yes you need to be braver and go beyond your self-imposed limitations, but gender shouldn’t be an obstacle nor play a vital role in the decision of traveling, but rather an important factor in behaving in conformity with the country that you’re traveling to, in order to be safe. Actually, I think that enjoying travel to the fullest means to be brave. Whenever I’m scared, that’s when I get the urge to do it. I really don’t like giving in to my fears. And to me that’s also really taking the moment that I’m in and making the most of it, even when I’m afraid or reluctant to try something new. And that is when you learn.
"To be fair, every country and every experience teaches you something."
Tanzania has taught me to appreciate the circle of life and how everything is connected. It was really beautiful to see animals roaming free in their natural habitat, as they should. Then, Israel was definitely eye-opening. When I went to the old city in Jerusalem that is divided into 4 quarters (Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Armenian), and without getting too political, I realized that, if we wanted to, we could always coexist harmoniously. Despite the different quarters, there wasn’t a distinct division between them. That was so refreshing to see. Morocco and Colombia showed me that anything we hear or see on TV has been through filters and often the negative messages come through. In reality, in both countries despite the facts, people are lovely, it is colorful and beautiful. It taught me to go beyond the preconceptions that we have and the assumptions that we make about certain countries. Last but not least, my precious lesson from Myanmar: I was in Bagan visiting one of its beautiful pagodas and noticed a group of kids (10 to 15) staring at me. They gathered around and started firing questions. They were so smiley, beautiful and curious… even about my freckles. It’s so interesting to see how people are intrigued by your face, your hair and the way that you dress, as I am by them.
"Different realities are still one of the things that excite me the most."
There are so many more experiences, I could go on and on about it. But the thing that traveling has taught me the most is the power it has to unite people. Listening to the locals’ stories, going beyond our biased prejudices, understanding the unrighteousness of some of our preconceptions and learning from different cultures are some of the benefits we can get from traveling. It makes you humble, modest and grounded. As mountains, deserts and jungles do whenever I am finding myself in the very middle – I just love feeling tiny in the midst of immense sceneries of unfiltered raw nature. It gives me this powerful feeling of carefreeness and being wild.
"In terms of photography those are definitely my favorite ones to capture."
However, you feel like you never do it justice. There’s a quote by Ansel Adams that says: “Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer – and often the supreme disappointment.”, which is so true.
"Nevertheless, a photo still represents a memory. Even if the result is not as good as you hoped it to be, the memory behind it is what counts – if you ask me."
I absolutely love my photo in one of Tanzania’s Maasai villages. It’s full of happy memories. It might look a little bit narcissistic to choose a picture of me as my favorite one, but it represents me the most because the smile you see was as genuine as it can be. It was such a brief moment (so brief that it was taken with an Iphone), in between a Maasai singing, dancing and a jumping competition. It was an amazing afternoon! I also got to visit their school, their homes – which is an experience in itself – and talk to them. So this photo is really special to me. It brings back one of my happiest moments. And that is what photography is all about – immortalizing memories. Even if the quality of the photo is low or colors are fading, the beauty of the memory remains the same.
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