12 countries – 15 flights – 28,211 miles traveled – 5 hotel nights – 1 confiscated tripod – 7 wonders – 13 days.
One month changed everything.
I fell 50 feet while climbing in Yosemite. A week later, I was hit by a car. Then came the skin cancer diagnosis.
Two weeks after that, with stitches still healing and questions circling in my head, I booked a journey to see the 7 New Wonders of the World — in just 13 days. Why? Because suddenly, I knew one thing for sure: life doesn’t wait.
Day 1: Chichen Itza
It all began in Yosemite Valley, where I’d spent three years training to climb the Nose route on El Capitan. I was nearly 2,000 feet up when I took a brutal 50-foot fall. Dangling on the side of a cliff, fear coursing through me, I started asking the questions I’d never paused to consider:
Why am I doing this?
What am I chasing?
Is it accomplishment? Is it approval? Or is it simply the thrill of being alive?
Day 2: Machu Picchu
It felt surreal — like something out of a movie.
Just one week after the climbing fall, I was hit by a car while riding my Vespa. Not long after, during a routine check-up, I heard the words no one wants to hear: skin cancer.
In less than three weeks, life handed me a brutal trifecta — a fall from 2,000 feet, a collision on the road, and a cancer diagnosis. It was as if the universe had slammed on the brakes and whispered: Reevaluate everything.
Day 4: Cristo Redentor
After everything that had happened, my friends and family (only half-jokingly) suggested I invest in a giant human bubble to live in.
Tempting… but not exactly ideal for dating — or traveling the world.
That’s when a moment of clarity hit me, right there beneath the open arms of Christ the Redeemer: I survived.
And maybe survival wasn’t just luck — maybe it was a second chance.
Day 6: Colosseum
In my experience, the most profound lessons in life haven’t come during moments of comfort — they’ve arrived in the wake of tragedy and loss.
Loss has a way of clearing the slate. It tears things down, yes, but in doing so, it creates space — space for something new to take root, something truer.
Standing in the Colosseum, surrounded by echoes of fallen empires, I felt it clearly: from ruin, transformation begins.
Day 8: Petra
After enduring the toughest month of my life, I found myself standing in Petra, surrounded by timeless stone walls — a perfect place for reflection.
It hit me like a revelation: the only thing truly standing between me and the life I dreamed of was… myself.
No excuses, no barriers but the ones I placed in my own mind.
From that moment, everything changed.
Day 11: Taj Mahal
I used to say, “There’s never enough time or money.” But deep down, those were just excuses.
What I was really afraid of was failure.
Standing before the Taj Mahal, I realized I had to stop seeing my goals as impossible obstacles and start believing in my own power — the power to choose how I live each day.
That shift changed everything.
Day 12: Great Wall of China
The only regrets I carry are from the chances I never took — the opportunities I let slip away.
This year, I chose differently. I took the leap.
And I’m committed to keep taking chances, embracing every moment of the greatest adventure there is: my life.
