Throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. ~ Mark Twain

I am blessed and grateful to have grown up with parents who love to travel and who grew up abroad. Because of them, I was exposed to Syrian and French culture and I began traveling at a young age. I discovered that exploring and doing it with open eyes really put things in perspective and made me realize what a small space I occupy in this world. These humble feelings arose in the places we went while my heart was jostled in the places in between. A majestic drive through Glacier National Park drove me to move to the west coast. The first time I wrote a poem was on a plane to Brazil – I was wide awake in the middle of the night, looking out at the enormous piles of clouds surrounding us in the moonlight. I began to view my life in comparison to what others go through and to the lives that other people lead in the world at large. The emaciated horses in Egypt, the poverty in Quito and the trash in the streets of Indonesia destroyed me. I stopped complaining or making a big deal about anything. Almost to a fault. Even the things that were worth paying attention to seemed trivial to me. But that mentality quickly changed when my appendix almost ruptured and I had to get it removed. Although traveling made me appreciate what I have, it also made me understand that things are relative, that there is beauty everywhere, that we are all human, and that health and happiness are important and exist, no matter where you’re from.

I used to go on research and design trips for the last company I worked for and I was trained to take in the details of my surroundings. We took photos of anything that inspired us, from the tile on a bathroom floor to the architectural details in a Japanese temple to patterns of a tree bark for color palette inspiration. So when I was winding through the illuminated streets of the night market in Siem Reap in Cambodia, it's not a surprise that I was immediately drawn to the patterns and colors of the fish feed bags. I spent that evening dreaming of how I could incorporate them into my life. It couldn’t be more fitting that I conceived TORRAIN when I was traveling and everything TORRAIN represents is perfectly in sync with the values of traveling and what it has taught me.

The unique materials of TORRAIN bags inspire people to open their eyes and to wonder where they came from. ‘What are these bags made of? What were they before?’ I get these questions all the time. It’s apparent that each bag has a history. They have been on a journey and they are meant to keep traveling. TORRAIN bags are perfect for travel because of the waterproof, lightweight nature of the material and I believe that traveling inspires people to respect our earth. TORRAIN bags embody this respect because they are made from recycled materials and they hopefully encourage others to recycle.

I think that if we keep our eyes open, we can always be in a state of traveling. We can be drawn outward and be able to witness the beauty that is everywhere.