An Eating Disorder Got in the Way of My Travel Dreams—but My Recovery Helped Me Reclaim the World

Travel + Leisure

4 days ago

There was a time when I couldn't imagine getting on a plane, let alone biting into a croissant in Paris or swimming in the Mediterranean.
Or rather, I could imagine those things, but they lived in a fantasy life, far removed from the one I actually inhabited. That life belonged to a thinner, more disciplined version of me—someone who had finally earned joy, earned adventure, earned a seat at the table. I punished my imperfect body with a revolving door of diets and restrictions that crescendoed into a full-blown eating disorder: first, anorexia; then binge eating; then a confusing diagnosis of EDNOS—eating disorder not otherwise specified, a name that felt as vague and dissatisfying as the experience itself. Hannah while in Delphi, Greece, famous for its ancient oracle of Apollo.
In college, I dreamed of studying abroad. My friends posted pictures from Florence and Buenos Aires, sipping wine and hiking ruins, glowing with possibility. I told myself I couldn't go because of credits or timing. But deep down, I knew the truth: I was afraid. Afraid of unfamiliar food. Afraid of being the biggest girl on the trip. Afraid of what might happen if I wasn't in complete control. My eating disorder had one job: to keep me small. And it did. Not just physically, but in every way.
It whispered, After you lose the weight, real life can begin.
And I listened.
In my early 20s, I entered treatment. I met other women—some my age, others in their 30s, 40s, 60s—who had lived their whole lives in the shadow of that same lie. They hadn't taken the trip, or eaten the cake, or worn the dress. They were still waiting to be 'ready.' And I saw, with a kind of clarity that felt like heartbreak, how long a person could wait.
Recovery, for me, was not linear or pretty. It was messy, slow, and filled with backslides and tiny wins. But as I stitched myself back together, piece by painful piece, I made myself a promise: I would not live the rest of my life in a cage of my own making.
A few years after treatment, I booked a trip with a friend who got it to Mexico.
I cried in the airport bathroom. I second-guessed every outfit in my bag. I worried I was too big to deserve adventure. But I got on the plane anyway. And then something wild happened: I had a good time. A really good time.
I ate street tacos without counting calories. I stood in front of ancient ruins and felt small in the best way possible. I wore a bathing suit on a beach where no one knew me, and I took photos where my body wasn't hidden or strategically angled—and tried (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) not to let the critical voice in my head narrate them.
That trip cracked something open in me. It was the first time in a long time I felt connected to my body—not as a problem to fix, but as a vessel that carried me somewhere new.
Since then, I've traveled to dozens of places I once would have ruled out entirely. I've hiked through olive groves in the south of Spain and floated in thermal waters in Costa Rica. I've tasted jackfruit curry in a banana leaf hut on the backwaters of Kerala and dumplings in a Bangkok night market. I've also had meltdowns in hotel rooms, cried after seeing an unflattering photo, and ordered room service because I was too overwhelmed to deal with the buffet. Recovery is still a process. The voice in my head didn't disappear—it just got quieter. And I've gotten better at not believing it. Traveling on a boat while in Istanbul.
Travel is, in many ways, the opposite of my eating disorder. My eating disorder was about control, rigidity, sameness. Travel is about surrender, openness, surprise. It asks me to be present in a body I don't always love, but am learning to live in with more compassion.
In Istanbul, I stepped into a Turkish hammam, naked but for a towel and nerves. I expected judgment, comparison. What I found instead were women of every shape and size, laughing, scrubbing, stretching. Nobody cared about my thighs. In Switzerland, after what felt like 10 straight meals of potatoes, bacon, and cheese, the old panic started to bubble up—you've ruined everything. But I reminded myself: I am OK. I am resilient. I will eat a vegetable again.
Every time I travel, I reclaim a little more space—not just in the world, but in myself. I take up room in photos. I order the special even if it's rich. I walk through cities without shrinking. I don't wait to be 'ready.' I go now.
This isn't a story about being healed. It's a story about choosing presence over perfection, again and again.
Sometimes when I travel, I still catch myself worrying about how I look. But then I try to shift the question: How do I feel? Am I alive? Curious? Awake to the smells of a new market, the salt on my skin after a swim, the warmth of bread pulled fresh from a bakery oven?
That's what I want to remember. That's what I want to collect. Not proof that I looked thin enough in a photo, but memories that I was there—fully, messily, joyfully there.
My body is not a before-and-after story. It's a passport. And I intend to keep using it.