I started the Portland Untourist because I believe in the power of travel. I believe in its potential to awaken our senses to the vast wonders of this world, in the transformative power of place and people, in the zen-like clarity that arises from finding oneself in a situation that feels completely foreign yet completely local.

My initial inspiration for the blog came from the Local Travel Movement, a site that shares my values about local travel and expresses them very eloquently. As I thought more about a world filled with local travelers, I realized that if ordinary people (people like me who aren’t about to hitchhike across Southeast Asia anytime soon) are going to join this nascent movement and help give it legs, they need more than the rugged adventure stories we typically associate with the local way of travel. So I decided to marry my two great passions – writing and travel – into this blog, as both a guide to local travel in Portland, Oregon, and a manifesto for thinking locally and transforming globally.

Local travel enriches both the traveler and the community within which she travels – economically, spiritually, emotionally, in all kinds of ways. Rather than staying in national hotels, eating in chain restaurants, and hurriedly sighting, local travel means savoring a destination’s uniqueness, supporting local businesses and immersing oneself in local culture. When you immerse yourself fully in a new place, when you begin to see it through the eyes of the people who live there, when the lives of local residents are enriched by your presence and you by theirs, then your journey becomes transformative in the truest sense of the word. You will be forever transformed, and you, in turn, will transform the people and places you encounter. That transformation taps into what is most beautiful and wondrous about being human.

There is a place for authentic and meaningful travel in our lives, if only we will see it. Travel can be so much more than a brief spell away from the pressures of the 9-5. Local travel inspires, transforms, enriches and ultimately opens our hearts to the wonder of our shared humanity.

Journeys to distant lands are optional. You can be a local traveler in your hometown. All it takes is a willingness to discover. It’s easy to visit a chain restaurant, where you know exactly what you’ll get and how much it will cost. Like most worthy endeavors, being a local traveler takes a certain amount of fearlessness. You will encounter things that challenge you, things you don’t like. There will be people who don’t understand. But if, in the midst of this, you can remain open and fearless, the world will reward you thousands of times over, simply because you will be present to its loveliness.

This article originally appeared on the Portland Untourist blog