We love to travel because it’s that addictive combination of exciting, interesting, surprising, and, simultaneously, relaxing. We’re inspired by new languages, tastes, and tilts of light over hilltops—but what happens when we get home? Meditation can (yes, really) be another route to the same states that travel brings us.

How? Well, first throw out your ideas of what meditation “should” be: “There’s no ‘right’ way to travel, and there’s not one way to meditate,” says Coby Kozlowski, a Yoga Journal covergirl and contemporary yoga and meditation teacher at the Esalen Institute. Much like how Paris's magic is as available to the student backpacker as a splurging retiree, meditation can happen in bed alone in the middle of a sleepless night, in a group of fellow sanity seekers replete with incense wafting, or while singing or dancing (yes, movement and singing meditation is a thing).

Hackneyed ideas about rules are just one way people get both globe-trotting and meditation wrong. Like meditation, travel has long been known as a vehicle for self-discovery: Herodotus's Histories and Sterne’s Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (440 BC and 1768 respectively) each include their share of querying the world to understand oneself—way before Eat, Pray, Love made the scene. You can adventure in other ways with meditation—“You’re really diving into the adventure of your inner world,” says Kozlowski—and that can have very real mental health benefits, too: Research has shown meditation’s benefits for everything from those who [suffer with PTSD] (http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/treatment/overview/mindful-PTSD.asp), to [attention issues] (http://jad.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/12/04/1087054713513328.abstract) and [depression and anxiety] (http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleID=1809754).

Both travel and meditation also help us realize acceptance of that which we can’t control, says Kozlowski, who spent a year voyaging around Central America, Europe, and Southeast Asia in her late 20s. "The bus breaks down, or you didn’t bring a raincoat and it’s pouring and you just have to accept what happens. Meditation is the same—you accept what’s there in a loving way."

That vulnerability is the key whether you are sitting on a pillow in your bedroom or trekking a country road in a faraway land. Both can be scary, boring, exciting, weird, or bring joy. It’s that attention to the day-to-day that makes travel so intense and brilliant, which can be cultivated by practicing mindfulness. Meditation, in this way, can be a mini-vacation every morning when we wake up.

To start? First, don’t feel intimidated by other people’s ideas—or your own preconceptions—of what meditation looks like, or what you are supposed to feel. You can sit, or you can move in slow, focused ways: think standing in a comfortable position and lifting your arms above your head as you breathe in, then moving them slowly as you breathe out. You will need a relatively quiet place and a focus point: most people find it easiest to start with their own breathing and short durations, then go longer (start with 5 or 10 minute sessions, not 45.) Looking for an on-the-go solution? There's an app for that.