I always want off-the-beaten-path, Anthony Bourdain-inspired

The words of Meghan Markle, spoken with yearning and clarity, reveal a soul seeking depth beyond the ordinary: “I always want off-the-beaten-path, Anthony Bourdain-inspired travel.” This is not the shallow wish of one who desires to boast of destinations seen, but the deeper hunger of a spirit longing to encounter truth—raw, unvarnished, unshaped by tourist hands. In these words, there is a call to reject the easy road, the polished mask, and to instead embrace the path where dust clings to the sandals and authenticity waits to be discovered.

From the ancient days, the greatest journeys were not the smoothest but the hardest. Pilgrims sought remote shrines in deserts and mountains. Explorers sailed not to safe harbors but to uncharted seas. Wisdom itself has always hidden not in palaces but in wildernesses. To seek the off-the-beaten-path is to align oneself with this eternal truth: that the true treasures of life are not found where crowds gather, but where few dare to tread.

The invocation of Anthony Bourdain gives these words even deeper weight. Bourdain, the wandering chef and storyteller, traveled not to gaze at monuments, but to sit at a stranger’s table, to share humble food, to listen to the voices of forgotten corners of the world. He sought the heartbeat of culture, the wisdom of the ordinary, the beauty of the overlooked. In this, he became more than a traveler—he became a bridge. Markle’s desire for “Bourdain-inspired travel” is thus a desire for this same communion: to see not only with the eyes but with the heart, to encounter humanity in its purest form.

History, too, gives us such examples. Think of Herodotus, called the “Father of History.” He did not remain in the comfort of his city, content with hearsay. He wandered to distant lands, recording customs, foods, stories, and beliefs. Much of what he preserved came from the margins, from peoples and traditions others ignored. It was his willingness to go off the beaten path that gave us insight into ancient worlds otherwise lost. Like Bourdain, like Markle, he knew that truth hides not in the center of power, but in the edges of life.

The meaning of the quote rests, then, in a philosophy of travel—and, more deeply, in a philosophy of living. To walk off the beaten path is not only to choose different roads when abroad; it is to choose curiosity over complacency, authenticity over appearance, listening over boasting. It is to live as one who seeks understanding rather than spectacle, connection rather than consumption.

For us, the lesson is luminous: do not merely travel to say you have gone, or to collect images to display. Travel to be changed. Sit with strangers. Taste the foods you do not recognize. Hear the stories that rarely reach the books. Seek, as Bourdain did, the threads of shared humanity in kitchens, in markets, in laughter beneath roofs of tin and sky. And even in daily life, seek the off-the-beaten-path—the quiet voice, the forgotten neighbor, the unexplored idea.

Thus, let this wisdom be remembered: the beaten path leads to comfort, but the untraveled road leads to revelation. If you would know the world and yourself more deeply, walk where the footprints are few. And in doing so, like Meghan Markle inspired by Bourdain, you may discover not only new lands, but new ways of seeing—where every encounter becomes a mirror of the soul, and every table, no matter how humble, becomes a feast of truth.