My wanderlust uncovered.
It's obvious that I eat, breathe and sleep travel but I've been thinking a lot lately about the importance of travel and it's long term impact on the traveler. Growing up on the cold plains of North Dakota, I often found myself longing to catch that next airplane to Fantasy Island.I dreamt of the story I would create when I, myself landed on Fantasy Island and hob nobbed with Ricardo Montalbon.
North Dakota was two things : green and blue ( most days ) in the summer time and grey and white in the winter time. The biggest adventure I had growing up was trudging through thigh high drifts of snow. Getting out of North Dakota was forefront in my mind. The intense curiosity to know what more was out there in this great big world was eating away at me.
I first came in contact with another culture when I was about 8 years old. We had received a couple of Cambodian refugees in our community and I was immediately drawn to them. They spoke a language I could not understand, ate exotic food and did things so differently from the way we did that I decided I needed to know more about them. This was my first real international traveling experience, although I was still on the plains of North Dakota. I now had a new friend and I was so excited to learn all that I could about her. I taught her mother English and was awed by her immense gratitude for me teaching her. In gratitude, she fed me Cambodian food and again, I was in love with this new taste for foreign lands.
As soon as I was able to head overseas, I did just that. I traveled to France when I was 16 to spend a month in the summer time with a host family. The feeling of sheer adventure told me that this would be the first of many journeys. Like a sponge, I absorbed everything I could about the French culture. I absorbed so much of the culture that after a month, I walked away 10 lbs. heavier! The Paris/Brest pastry had done me in. I walked away from this adventure a completely different person. My eyes were now opened to a whole new way of living and from that moment on, I knew travel was in my future.
So, I am rambling about this because travel has had an enormous impact on my life. I didn't initially choose travel as my career. I ventured into social work and spent years working with at-risk families, individuals and kids and throughout my career, I made it a priority to work with other cultures as well. Fulfilling my need to "travel" but not go anywhere, per se. I took the plunge to follow my passion and enter the travel industry and I'm very happy that I did. In my opinion, booking vacations for people is more than just booking a vacation. I get to help people see the world and in doing so, I know that those travels will leave profound marks on their souls, making them yearn for more. Honestly, I consider my job a real gift. I get to be part of a person's life long memory. I take this seriously because the way I look at it, I'm helping people change, just as I did in my social work career.
We all have the dreams of traveling. . . well, maybe some don't. My cousin once mentioned to me that he'd be fine staying put in Wisconsin and raising chickens. So be it. Everyone's bliss is different. Take the time to travel. Explore new cultures. If you aren't in a place to travel to far off lands just yet, travel to far off lands within your own community. Eat at ethnic restaurants ( no, Taco Bell does not count), check out a Cinco de Mayo festival, learn a new language. All of these things will benefit you in your future travels as you will have opened your eyes and heart to something new. . . somewhere new. You will discover someone new inside of you that perhaps you didn't know existed : the traveler. No longer the tourist on a vacation, you are now a traveler on a mission to become richer in your life. As that pinterest quote says, " Traveling is the only thing you buy that makes you richer."
North Dakota was two things : green and blue ( most days ) in the summer time and grey and white in the winter time. The biggest adventure I had growing up was trudging through thigh high drifts of snow. Getting out of North Dakota was forefront in my mind. The intense curiosity to know what more was out there in this great big world was eating away at me.
I first came in contact with another culture when I was about 8 years old. We had received a couple of Cambodian refugees in our community and I was immediately drawn to them. They spoke a language I could not understand, ate exotic food and did things so differently from the way we did that I decided I needed to know more about them. This was my first real international traveling experience, although I was still on the plains of North Dakota. I now had a new friend and I was so excited to learn all that I could about her. I taught her mother English and was awed by her immense gratitude for me teaching her. In gratitude, she fed me Cambodian food and again, I was in love with this new taste for foreign lands.
As soon as I was able to head overseas, I did just that. I traveled to France when I was 16 to spend a month in the summer time with a host family. The feeling of sheer adventure told me that this would be the first of many journeys. Like a sponge, I absorbed everything I could about the French culture. I absorbed so much of the culture that after a month, I walked away 10 lbs. heavier! The Paris/Brest pastry had done me in. I walked away from this adventure a completely different person. My eyes were now opened to a whole new way of living and from that moment on, I knew travel was in my future.
So, I am rambling about this because travel has had an enormous impact on my life. I didn't initially choose travel as my career. I ventured into social work and spent years working with at-risk families, individuals and kids and throughout my career, I made it a priority to work with other cultures as well. Fulfilling my need to "travel" but not go anywhere, per se. I took the plunge to follow my passion and enter the travel industry and I'm very happy that I did. In my opinion, booking vacations for people is more than just booking a vacation. I get to help people see the world and in doing so, I know that those travels will leave profound marks on their souls, making them yearn for more. Honestly, I consider my job a real gift. I get to be part of a person's life long memory. I take this seriously because the way I look at it, I'm helping people change, just as I did in my social work career.
We all have the dreams of traveling. . . well, maybe some don't. My cousin once mentioned to me that he'd be fine staying put in Wisconsin and raising chickens. So be it. Everyone's bliss is different. Take the time to travel. Explore new cultures. If you aren't in a place to travel to far off lands just yet, travel to far off lands within your own community. Eat at ethnic restaurants ( no, Taco Bell does not count), check out a Cinco de Mayo festival, learn a new language. All of these things will benefit you in your future travels as you will have opened your eyes and heart to something new. . . somewhere new. You will discover someone new inside of you that perhaps you didn't know existed : the traveler. No longer the tourist on a vacation, you are now a traveler on a mission to become richer in your life. As that pinterest quote says, " Traveling is the only thing you buy that makes you richer."
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