How It All Started

“Travel changes you. You will see possibilities everywhere, be filled with more questions than answers, and more to explore than you could ever imagine.”
– Hans Christian Andersen

Why do I travel? Because I can’t NOT travel. That’s what I tell anyone who asks. Not that many do. But like the pre-teen Girl Guide me who sewed a gazillion badges on her sash, I’m prepared.

“I shall travel to 30 countries before I’m 30!” I mumbled to myself one day in university. Back when biker shorts and bangs were in, and Gwyneth was too busy dating Brad Pitt to create vagina candles.

I was going to school and working almost 40 hours a week to pay my rent, booze bills, and for the odd box of KD. But–surprise, surprise-student loans were flush. Textbooks were more expensive than renting Eddie Vedder for the whole semester-but I quickly discovered the hack of borrowing them free from the library. So, after paying for residence and tuition, I had “bonus cash” burning holes in my thrift shop overalls.

Later, I would spend years paying off my spontaneous trips to two-star resorts in Cuba. In the meantime, the number of stamps in my passport was increasing more rapidly than my grades.

The summer before my big 3-0 I accomplished my objective. Slovakia, Croatia or maybe Montenegro pushed me over the edge? It was one of the Eastern European countries across which my then-teaching-colleague-boyfriend and I trekked for 6 weeks. One of my first self-funded, non-student-loan travels.

Cut to the future.

Shortly after January 1 slogged its lazy arse into the year 2024, I decided to make some big goals. Flossing every night. Four water bottles a day. And, of course, travel. Thinking I had 48 countries on my has-been list, I solemnly declared I would hit 60 countries by the time I turned 60 years old. 

Twelve countries in 9 years. Sounds…do-able. Costly…but do-able.

“I better count back over the countries I’ve been to,” I mumbled to myself the day after I proclaimed my intentions.

Well, shoot. 

Scanning through a list of the world’s countries, I jotted down the ones to which I had visited. It was not 48 like I had previously boasted. 

It was a mere 42. 

I simultaneously patted myself on my back (well, as far down my shoulder as I can reach, anyways) and shed a few tears.

Eighteen countries in 9 years. Sounds…do-able? Much more costly…but still sort-of, kind-of do-able.

“Well, I’ve got some work to do,” I mumbled to myself. Retrieving a nickel from the depths of my Lazyboy, I pulled out the scratchable map that my friend had just gifted me. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.

Do-able. Costly…but do-able.