Traveling never dawned on me as a
child. My family and I had our yearly summer road trips from Wisconsin down to
southern Texas and Mexico to visit my grandmother's family and of course
my mom made sure that I had my fare share of trips to Disney World down in
Florida. I also remember experiencing Las Vegas as a teenager and a family vacation to
the Dominican Republic while in high school but, that's as far as my travels
went. I hadn't begun to gain the urge to travel until I began taking Spanish
classes in middle school. We learned about Spanish-speaking countries and
whenever we had to choose a country for a project, I would choose Costa Rica.
I think it was the pretty and colorful photographs with such lush
greenery, tropical birds, and crystal blue sandy beaches that I printed and glued to my
poster board that really influenced my desire to visit such a magical place. And if
just one country looks like that, I could only imagine what all of the others
encompassed.
It wasn't until after getting into
a Hospitality and Tourism program in Chicago for my remaining two years of
college that I realized how much some people travel, what the world entails,
how diverse the world is, the different
ways to travel, and everything in between. I specifically remember
sitting the first day in Mr. Murphy s International Business course and everyone went
around the room taking turns sharing the places in which we have traveled to.
Mr. Murphy had a lot more years on the rest of us and he is a very
accomplished and successful businessman with many life experiences and opportunities
under his belt so of course he raddled off an impressive list of countries. I
jotted down my sad short list of vacations; Florida, Las Vegas, California,
Missouri, Texas, somewhere in Mexico that I don't remember because i was so
little at the time, Arizona where I used to live, and the most exciting one
yet, the Dominican Republic. Then, following my turn is a young asian girl. She
shares with us her very impressive list of about 15 different countries. She
explains that she was born in Asia and moved to France as a little girl with her
family. When in Europe, she says how easy it is
to visit so many other countries
because of the how close the countries are to one another and how easy the
transportation is. She also has studied in other countries and now shes studying in
America on a student visa. I sat there in awe and jealousy. I wish I could visit
all of those places like she has! And it was at that moment that I said to
myself that I will find a way to travel the world one way or another.
After returning from my last
backpacking trip in April 2014, I decided to write an email to my former professor Mr.
Murphy and shared with him all of my travels since his class. I told him how
I've been to over 50 countries on 5 continents in the past 4 years, all on my own expense
and mostly by myself (except for the times that my mom came along or came to
visit me). He was very impressed and said that he has to catch up with me now.
That made me smile :) My goal is to visit every continent (except for
Antarctica, obviously, although it would be pretty awesome to see) before the
age of 30. Therefore, I have 4 years left to accomplish my goal :D
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