Introducing my passion: Travel

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Though I didn’t live a particularly sheltered life, I’d never been out of the United States until I was sixteen. My parents raised us to always be conscious of the arts and other cultures, and we constantly made trips to other cities and states for museums, plays, and concerts. My father frequently spoke of his study abroad in Köln, Germany, and his trips to Austria to visit family with my mother. It was one of my parent’s dreams to help my brother and me experience Europe, but financially it was always impossible. Eventually, we decided to save to make such a family trip happen. My relatives in Vienna, Austria, were no longer young, and it was very important to my parents that we got to know them while we could. As it happened, the summer of 2010, when we were planning the trip, was also when my school German class was offering a ten-day trip to Germany. I worked part-time and managed to save enough to pay for that trip, as well. So, that summer, I left for Germany with my school, and after ten amazing days, met up with my parents where we continued on our “back to the roots” journey, in which we would literally head to the Austria-Hungarian border to see the houses where my great-great grandparents were born and raised. This trip would teach me far more about myself, my family, German and Austrian culture, and the German language than I ever would have learned had I not traveled.

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Travel is my passion. It’s something I hope everyone has a chance to do in their lives, though I certainly understand financial limitations – international travel isn’t cheap, and my own family had to plan far in advance to be prepared for it. I hope I’ll have the opportunity to travel many more times in my life, to experience more of the world, to expand my horizons, to educate myself. I’m no extremely experience traveller; in fact, I’m a novice at best. But I hope in this blog I can provide anecdotes from my trips in which readers can draw tips for their own travel, and a bucket list of where I wish to see, to hopefully provide inspiration for other aspiring world-trekkers who, like me, want to see essentially everything of everywhere, and don’t know where to start.