By Wafa Al Naimi
The air was soft, like a word spoken for the first time. I stood on the resort’s terrace, watching the horses move in slow circles, as if rearranging my heartbeat. I wasn’t there to collect photos or consume an experience. I was there… to return.
For years, I travelled like someone chasing a train that never really arrived. Endless lists. Dazzling destinations. Heavy suitcases. But something was always missing when I came home: me. Until that one morning at a polo resort in Dubai.
Everything was still The earth, the sky, and… my heart. That place whispered a truth I had long forgotten: Luxury isn’t in the number of stars on the wall, But in the space, it gives you to hear yourself again, To sit with your silence, To remember a promise, you once made to yourself in a moment of truth.
“Everything has changed…but not my heart. It only found its way back to where it once belonged.”
At that resort, I wasn’t just a guest. I was a woman honouring travel as a sacred ritual. Savoring the morning light, choosing my breakfast with childlike wonder, and allowing the place to hold me, to heal me. I discovered that the most beautiful journeys are not the ones we post…
But the ones we tell our soul in whispers. That’s when I realized: travel journalism should not only describe places. It must reveal the hidden stories—the ones that live in stillness. A woman finds herself in quiet luxury. A pair of slippers left at the spa entrance, teaching the art of lightness. A horse’s gaze reminds us of the courage that’s still asleep inside. Can a hotel be a school? Can an experience of hospitality teach us love, maturity, and grace? I believe it can. Because real travel doesn’t take us far. It brings us close. It doesn’t impress. It softens. It doesn’t distract. It restores. This is why I write. And this is why I travel.
I want to rediscover what it means to come home to myself. To turn every stay into a quiet celebration. And remind the world that the journey often begins when we stop running.
