I have an addiction

I am addicted to traveling. I have a very severe form of the travel bug. I spend a good portion of my days thinking about the places I want to travel. My disease has progressed to the point that I no longer just want to I am addicted to traveling. I have a very severe form of the travel bug. I spend a good portion of my days thinking about the places I want to travel. My disease has progressed to the point that I no longer just want to travel within the United States, I want to travel internationally. In addition, I no longer want to just travel to various places, I want to move there. Visiting and living somewhere are totally different things and you get such a better taste for a culture when you are living there.

My addiction has developed over the past two and a half years as I have done more and more traveling. At one point, during my last semester of my undergrad, I was gone 6 weekends in a row. This was mainly for interviewing at grad schools and checking potential schools out. Since then I have gone on a trip of some sort almost every single month, whether it be to go to a BYU away game, go to Mexico with Kaiizen, go to visit my sister and brother-in-law in Oregon, a family vacation, moving to Alaska, etc. I am deeply indebted to my dad and my student loans, which have allowed me the freedom of travel (mostly my dad—don’t worry I don’t abuse the student loan privilege).

My latest obsession is backpacking through Europe. It seems everyone these days is moving to Europe for a semester or backpacking it. I would say I spend 10% of every day thinking about how/when I can get to Europe. Every time I get a letter or tape or pictures from my brother in the Netherlands, I go a little crazy with jealousy. Apparently the Netherlands is quite the melting pot, and he is meeting people from all over the world. Ever since I went to Brazil with Kaiizen, I have wanted to backpack through Europe. I loved staying at a hostel and I loved using the public transportation down there. I just loved everything about going to Brazil. Well except the headache I had from concentrating so hard to understand what people were saying. It is amazing how much you can get across with just hand gestures though.

I also really want to go on more humanitarian aide trips throughout the world. I am very excited to go to central Mexico this summer with YouthLINC, and I am even more excited that Operation Smile might be there on a mission at the same time so I may be able to check that out for a few hours. I very much want to go on an Operation Smile mission sometime in the near future. The thing I like most about humanitarian aide trips is that you get to interact on a very close and personal level with people who are in so much need and yet have so much spirit inside. You don’t just travel to the tourist places, you get right in there with the people and experience a little bit of what their life is like.

I think what it boils down to is I love discovering new and different things. I love learning about different cultures and seeing what is different between theirs and mine, but also what is similar. I love exploring new areas. Even here in Utah, I am always going on drives just to get lost and discover a cool spot that I haven’t been to before.

In my dream world, I would love to move to one place for 6 months (from January to the end of July) and then move back to Utah for 6 months (just in time for football season). However, there are several things that are stopping me from my travel dreams. (A) I’m broke. (B) I’m in school. (C) It is very hard to live somewhere long enough to form attachments to the people and the place, and then pick up and leave. Keeping in touch is very difficult, and a phone call just isn’t the same as personal interaction. I have missed my friends in Alaska and Hawaii a lot. (D) I want to be close to my family. It is hard on me to have my brother so far away and my sister and brother-in-law and nephew in a different state. When Heather and Landon lived in Provo I would go over to their apartment a few times a week and just hang out with them and I loved it. I also want my nephew to grow up knowing his Auntie really well. In addition, it is hard enough on my parents that I don’t live at home. I’m pretty sure they hate it when I move away. (E) The time is rapidly approaching that I am going to have to get a real job and settle down. I will no longer have 4 week Christmas breaks, or spring/fall break, or summer internships. Boo. Except for the money part that comes along with a real job. (F) Eventually I am going to have to get married. Haha let me rephrase that. Eventually I would really like to get married. But it is difficult to meet someone when you are moving around so much.

In short, if you see me and I don’t appear to be paying attention to what is going on around me, I am probably thinking about travel or football.