"When I say I want to travel, I don't mean I want to stay at resorts & go on tours with tour guides or buy keychains from souvenir shops. I don't want to be a tourist. When I say I want to travel, I mean I want to explore another country & become part of it. I want to discover small coffee shops in Germany, Italy, & France. I want to walk on beaches in Australia & browse the book stores of England. I want to hike the Great Wall of China & go cliff diving in Hawaii. I want to meet people who are not like me, but who I can like all the same. I want to take pictures of things & places & the people I meet. I want my mind to be in constant awe of life on earth. I want to see things with new eyes. I want to look at a map & be able to remember how I was transformed by the places I've been to, the things I've seen, & the people I've met. I want to come home & realize that I have not come home whole, but have left a piece of my heart in each place I've been. This I think is what is at the heart of adventure & this is why I plan on making my life one."
Why can't this be my life? Why does the process of life and the progression of age have to be so cut & dry? Preschool, Kindergarten, Elementary School, Middle School, High School, first jobs, College, Career, death. Why is it that taking a spur of the moment road trip is not an option? Why can't all my money go toward taking a few trips to life altering destinations? The reason I chose to study journalism (as well as nutrition), was to be able to write what I see, and what most can't see. People all the way in Thailand, Pakistan, and Sweden should know what it is like to walk down the trails in Central Park (New York) in the midst of fall, or explore the quirky stores of New Hope, Pennsylvania. They should be able to feel the snowflakes resting on their eyelashes as a blizzard creeps through the desolate Vermont mountain tops.
It is important to know what this world looks like and experience a sense of adventure while we are still on this earth. Together.
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