Does anyone else have travel addiction? Am I the only one that feels that itch every four or five months? You know, that itch that can only be satisfied by stuffing some clothes into a bag, then walking around a completely different place for some time. I suppose I’m surprised that my travel bug has stayed with me for so long in my life. I’m almost forty now and there's no sign of it settling down.
When I was twelve, I had the opportunity to go to Perth, Australia and live there for a month with an international community of fourteen other country delegations.
The program was called Children’s International Summer Villages (CISV) and still operates today. It sent me to a completely new part of the world for the first time. No parents. No school. Just learning and sharing experiences with an international community. This was the best kind of education I could have received as a young teen. It changed me in ways I could only fully understand later in life. It was shortly after that experience that I created my first entry on my bucket list. I decided that I was going to try to venture to every continent on the planet before I died.
Living in North America was easy, going to Australia was lucky. That was two out of the seven continents.
Then, at fifteen, I was again lucky enough to go on a trip to Europe with my French Club. (Yes, I was one of those students in high school that was involved with most shit going on in school.) We went to England and France. Again, with a delegation of students. No parents. I would later return to France in my thirties for a brief time, but regardless…
That was three.
Then, at the age of twenty-eight, I decided to take a huge leap of faith and moved to Japan. I lived there for almost ten years teaching mainly. Japan was a great base of operations and a great jumping off point to visit many other Asian countries. I will likely post more about my time in Asia in the future. After all, I spent a fourth of my life on this fourth continent.
During those ten years, I also made a trip to Cape Town, South Africa to touchdown on the fifth. Africa is so fargin huge and it was a bit difficult to decide where to go. Admittedly, it was a more touristy kind of adventure, but still gave me a fantastic cultural view. Plus, a shark nearly ate my hand. Classic.
I returned to the Unites States in late 2017. Since then, I have made my fourth venture into Canada and my first into Israel.
All these different places call out to me. I always get this burst of excitement when visiting a new country for the first time. Giving me the chance to be the proverbial “fly on the wall” to see how others manage life. I think it’s an addiction.
Oddly enough, I have traveled more outside of the US than inside it. There’s still a lot for me to see here in the states too!
Now, I’m middle-aged somehow, but I’ve been able to cross five out of seven continents off the list. I still have South America and Antarctica to visit. I will never be able to shake the travel bug infection.
It amazes me that there is such a large population of people on this planet who don’t leave their home country, who don’t explore or branch out. Some rarely even leave their own hometown! I think this is one of the biggest educational flaws facing humanity. While the internet has connected people in new ways, there is no substitute for experiencing a different culture first hand. You can read whatever you want about a place or a people or a thing, but it doesn’t mean you're an expert.
I remember when I decided to go to China and the reaction people gave me when I told them.
“You can’t go there! They’re Communists!” “You’ll be arrested for being American!” “Did you know they eat puppies?!”
Yes, these were all real criticisms about my travels. These are the same people who yell at others for speaking a different language in America. Or speak half-truths of cultures they actually know nothing about.
Mark Twain said that, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”
Usually people and companies boast specific destinations for travelling, but I suppose the point of this piece is to just inspire you to just…travel. If you’re reading this, ask yourself when the last time you traveled was. Have you ever left the country? Is there anywhere you want to go? Is there anything you want to see in the world that you haven’t? Are you just like me and understand the importance of adventuring? Go somewhere. Anywhere. Get out of your little box of life and see something new.
Oh, and if we ever get the space thing figured out in my lifetime, I’d like to go to space too.
If I were president of the world, I would enable a global travel exchange program that would require every person to leave their home country for at least one year. A person would have an age range (maybe late teens, early twenties?) to commit to one year of living in a country different from their own. My idea was that the country would be determined by the choice of the individual. However, that choice would be limited to a specific group of countries based on the person’s background and personality profile. Not that I’ve thought about this too much or anything…
Anyway, just a heads-up if you guys ever want to make me president of the world.
You’ll have that to look forward to.
Travel on.
