At the early age of 2, I was bitten by a bug, and I’ve been living with the side effects ever since. This bug's main symptom is a constant itch to get up and go - anywhere and everywhere. To see sights I’ve never seen before, to taste new foods, meet new people, experience new cultures, and return to reality full of new stories to tell and pictures to share. And then to plan the next journey and do it all over again.
I credit my parents for exposing me to this bug when I was just a toddler. At age 2, I spent my birthday in Bermuda (check out my dad, the original hipster, with his killer seventies handlebar mustache). At age 3, Curacao. I know that I was too young on those trips to remember them, but I'm still certain they had an influence on the world traveler I’ve become. Throughout my childhood, travel was just something we always did. When I was 5 and my brother was born, my parents bought a condo in south Florida. At least three times a year, from age 5 to my teen years, we would pack up our 1980 Ford Econoline van with summer clothes, grandma’s home-cooked chicken - and usually both Grandma and Nana - and we’d roll out of our driveway in New Jersey singing Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” as we set off on the 1,200-mile journey down the East Coast. We’d traverse seven states on that road trip, ticking off mile markers, stopping at kitschy rest areas like South of the Border between North and South Carolina, spending the night in a Days Inn in small towns off I-95 with names like Fayetteville and Rocky Mount, until we finally made it to the Sunshine State. There was nothing like the freshly squeezed orange juice at the Florida Welcome Center. Even though we still had five hours left of the journey once we crossed the Florida state line, that fresh, cold OJ always signaled that we were almost there.
When I was 13, we added a new and exciting element to our Florida trips: week-long Caribbean cruises out of Miami or Fort Lauderdale. Each summer of my high school years, my family of four would team up with our close friends – another family of four with a daughter roughly my age and another my brother’s age – and set sail to different exotic ports of call: St. Thomas, St. Maarten, Martinique, Barbados, Grand Cayman, Cozumel. You name a port in the Caribbean, and it’s likely my teenage feet stepped foot on it at least once. Each trip was an adventure in its own. In addition to doing touristy things like buy Hard Rock Café t-shirts and try our hand at snorkeling or parasailing, my dad always liked to see how the locals lived. What better way to do that than to stop in a grocery store in an off-the-beaten-path neighborhood, or simply stop and talk to a local and ask them how they’re doing.
Not going to lie: Teenage me didn't always love family vacations!
As I got older and went off to college, I knew right away that I wanted to study abroad. I chose my major of media studies because I knew there would be the opportunity to study in Manchester, England, my junior year. But by the time junior year came, I had become so involved in my Spanish classes that I chose instead to study in Madrid, Spain. I spent eight weeks immersed in Spanish culture, living with a host senora, taking classes, and living it up as only a newly 21-year-old in a foreign country could. I made new friends, one of whom would become my mid-twenties travel buddy, and I spent another few weeks hopping from country to country on a Eurorail pass, staying in hostels, seeing sights like the Eiffel Tower, the Roman Coliseum and the Swiss Alps, all the while collecting memories that would shape my life and stay with me forever.
In fact, I credit my travel bug and sense of adventure for bringing me to where I am now. Without those experiences in my younger life, I never would have had the courage or even the inspiration to pick up my East Coast life and move it from New York City to California. But with more than 20 years of travel under my belt at the time, I knew that there was much more out there than even New York City - the center of the universe - had to offer.
And I was right. My move to San Diego introduced me to so many new sights - Hollywood and Beverly Hills, San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge, the neighboring Arizona desert and the rainy but wonderful Pacific Northwest. It immersed me in a completely new laid-back lifestyle. And it introduced me to a whole host of new people, including my husband, who, like me, loves to travel. He even joined the Navy to see the world - an experience that allowed me to travel to Singapore to visit him on deployment. In our 14 years together, we’ve traveled to so many places it’s hard to keep count. We spent our honeymoon on a Baltic cruise, visiting places like Amsterdam and Russia. Together, we’ve ziplined in Alaska, bungee jumped on Vancouver Island, plunged off the 192-meter Sky Tower in New Zealand, perched atop the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland, searched for Nessie in Scotland, practiced our archery skills outside a medieval castle in Estonia, smoked cigars in Cuba and fed kangaroos in Tasmania. And we’ve only just begun.
Doesn't everyone practice archery at a medieval Estonian castle on their honeymoon?
Over the past 15 years I’ve lived in San Diego, I’ve had to tell my parents numerous times that they’re the reason I live so far away - whenever they ask when I’m moving back to New Jersey, I remind them that they’re the ones that let the travel bug bite me all those years ago, so they have no one to blame but themselves!
The truth is, I am so blessed and so fortunate to have parents who raised me with the curiosity to explore new things, with the resources to afford these opportunities and with the sense of adventure to seek out new experiences. I can only hope to continue to be so fortunate to venture to many more new places in the future, perhaps with a family of my own. And when I do, I’ll be sure to visit an off-the-beaten-path grocery store, or stop a local, simply to ask how they’re doing.
And then I'll blog about it!
Second to travel, writing is the other thing I was born to do. It only makes sense to combine the two. In Wanders Never Cease, I'll be blogging about adventures to destinations near and far, fun events and road trips in San Diego and Southern California, the excitement and culture that awaits across the border in Mexico, and pet-friendly travel (for my fellow dog lovers). Read more about what I have planned under "My Destinations" and subscribe to my blog to follow along!
I'm so excited to embark on this blogging journey and I'm hopeful you'll all come along for the ride. Adventure awaits...let's go!