Origins of a Traveler

I blame my parents for giving me this insatiable need to travel (“wanderlust,” as it’s often called).

When I was younger, we took family vacations everywhere, most of the time driving, which instilled in me the love of a good road trip. Before I graduated high school, we’d hit up all the major cities in Texas and made trips out to California and Vegas, not forgetting the Grand Canyon and Albuquerque along the way. We’ve been to Hot Springs in Arkansas, and beaches in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina.

The first time I flew in a plane was on our trip to San Francisco my sophomore year of high school.

The pure love of seeing new things, exploring cities as an inhabitant and not a tourist – as we learned taking public transit in San Francisco – are some of the most valuable things I think I’ve ever been taught. I gained street sense in New Orleans and Chicago, and quickly learned to love a good walk.

I discovered that you’re never lost, you’re just taking the scenic route. 

And perhaps the most important thing I learned is that you don’t have to be rich to travel. You don’t need to have thousands of dollars of disposable income. You just need to have a plan, and a budget, and enough of a will to see a new place that you’ll give up Starbucks every day or cook dinner instead of eating out.

It’s because of all this that I can study abroad this summer, that I’ve been able to afford to take trips to see friends, and I cannot thank them enough for this.