Travel and Grow

Travel – one way to learn about yourself in the world away from home.  My first experience with travel occurred when I was young  We drove our big blue station wagon from Colorado to St. Louis to visit relatives.  Memories take me back to watching the lush, green corn fields fly by and the lightening bugs dancing at dusk. The freedom of that unknown route became a high I continue to seek out to this day.

What is it about new places and people that sparks our imagination and lust for adventure? Perhaps it is the feeling of newness, adventure and spirit; or perhaps it is the feeling we get when strolling down a new hotel hallway.  What will become of my days in this new place?  Where will life take me while I’m here?

Soon after that first car ride away, I got the travel bug and desperately hoped that my parents would send me to Europe as an exchange student.  Alas, our budget did not allow for such extravagances, but once on my own, travel became a top priority.  I’ve traveled alone to Europe and met amazing humans, random strangers who became friends.  Previous jobs have afforded me the ability to travel to Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, the Bahamas and a variety of domestic locations.  Each trip an extension of my life experience and each place an opportunity to expand my understanding of peoples and cultures.

If you can travel, you must.  The fear of the unknown becomes less of a fear when traveling than a reason to be alive.  Last year I traveled to Hawaii to visit my son while he lived there for a few months.  Catamaran rides, helicopter rides, paddle boarding, humid air and clear water bring smiles to me still.  My next adventure is Alaska. How, I ask myself, can I afford this now?  And my reasonable answer is – because life is meant to be lived and there are too many interesting adventures to enjoy!  The recent death of my father has instilled these thoughts in me more profoundly than I admit; we are here to expand our lives and to commune with other people in ways we could not imagine 100 years ago.  The ability to go anywhere in this world is possible.  Travel allows each of us to leave our common routines and daily lives to change it up, educate our minds and understand the universal reality that humans are amazing creatures.  We are different, yet we are all the same.  Travel on!