I've always liked to travel, but when I was younger, my traveling was all road trips. My dad used to go to these conventions for work, and my mom, sisters, and I would tag along, since the hotel room cost would already be covered. It was probably the only way we got the opportunity to go as many places as we did when we were younger. It also helps that my mom loved finding historical places that we could stop along the way, so we went a bunch of interesting places on our way to and from these conventions.
Places I visited as a child (in no particular order):
- Florida - my grandparents used to live there 7 months out of the year, so we visited them and went to Disney World!
- Georgia - on a trip to Florida, we visited friends of my parents, whom they actually met through those work conventions!
- Tennessee - Nashville, for a convention
- Kentucky - on the Nashville trip
- Missouri - Branson and St. Louis, for my uncle's wedding
- Indiana - Indianapolis, for the Children's Museum; Fort Wayne for dance competitions
- Nevada - Las Vegas, for a convention
- Hawaii - oh, wait... my parents didn't take us to that one. Twice.
- Arizona - Phoenix and Sedona
- New Jersey - Atlantic City, for a convention; Jersey Shore
- Maryland - various beach trips and a chorus trip that my mom chaperoned
- North Carolina - Outer Banks
- Massachusetts - Provincetown, for a whale-watching trip
- New York - NYC, for a choir trip in high school; Chautauqua, for an opera trip from a "summer enrichment" program I attended; Niagara Falls, for, well, Niagara Falls.
- Pennsylvania - where I grew up
- Ohio - we lived near the border, so Ohio is practically an extension of home
- West Virginia - like Ohio, I've been there frequently, and not really for vacation
So you could say that I did a fair amount of traveling by car when I was younger, and the only trip we flew to was Las Vegas. Then, when I went to college, I dated a guy from Philadelphia. I visited him and his family frequently enough that driving wasn't too convenient, so I racked up some frequent flyer miles through Southwest on $100 round-trips between Philly and Pittsburgh. But I don't count that as "traveling," even if it took me from flying "once" in my life to "more than I care to count."
However, you may notice that none of those travels required a passport. I don't think either of my parents have been out of the country before, which probably factored into why all of our vacations were domestic. My mom is also a firm believer that there are more than enough interesting and historical places to see in the U.S., or so it seems, because she never ran out of places to try to make us stop on our road trips (like Lucy the Elephant near Atlantic City). Regardless, I never needed a passport growing up. When I got to college, I always wanted to do Study Abroad, but being the busy bee that I am, I worked the whole way through college. I paid for everything myself, so I worked as much as humanly possible. When we would have a day off from school (or a week for Spring Break or Christmas), I just viewed that as more hours that I could make money! This mentality meant that I never took a Spring Break trip or studied abroad, because I couldn't bring myself to pay out a lot of money, while simultaneously giving up the opportunity to make money during the time off from school. Do I regret that I never took the opportunity to travel abroad? Maybe. Do I think it would have been possible? Maybe. Do I ultimately regret my choice to work instead? No. Instead I just looked through my friends' pictures on facebook of all of their Study Abroad trips in college, and when I felt bad, I just looked at my bank account to make myself feel better. Just kidding. Kind of.
After college, I started dating my fiance. After about 13 months of dating, we were invited to his uncle's wedding, which was in Tampa. Our first real trip together! We flew from Pittsburgh to Atlanta and then to Tampa (the last leg of which made me really sick!), and then back. I took the fact that we both survived the trip to be a good sign for our relationship. We enjoyed traveling with each other, and even though we had talked about it before, it became very clear that we wanted to travel together in the future.
Since that first trip, we've been to California twice (to do some sightseeing, visit family & friends, and see our dear Steelers play the Niners at Candlestick Park, the worst field in the NFL), the Jersey Shore twice, Philly once, and NYC once.
In 2011, a work trip took my fiance (then-boyfriend) across the pond to Israel for 2 weeks, which could be a story all in itself. This was his first trip out of the country, and required him to get his passport. Getting his passport sparked many conversations about potential future trips, and inspired me to get my passport (despite having any firm plans to go out of the country). In order to justify the passport fee, we decided to plan a trip to the easiest out-of-the-country locale, Canada. My fiance is a huge baseballnerd fan, so I suggested we go to Niagara Falls and Toronto, and catch a baseball game in Toronto. So Memorial Day weekend 2011, that's exactly what we did. I could finally say I left the country (even if driving across the border was completely uneventful and Ontario is basically an extension of the U.S.)!
For Christmas last year, my wonderful then-boyfriend/now-fiance bought me a trip to Jamaica! I was convinced at that point that he was going to propose in Jamaica (but that's a story for another time). The surprise was that it wasn't just a trip for two, but best friend and her fiance (who got engaged just prior to Christmas) were coming along, too! Again, we took a trip out of the country over Memorial Day weekend. We had a fabulous time, and that could fill a whole blog post in itself (and probably will at some point when I feel reminiscent), but my main reason for bringing it up is that Jamaica was my first stamp in my passport! I was glad that I finally felt like it was worth having a passport for a trip.* I also got to experience a "foreign" country, new culture, different climate, and faaaaantastic food!
Now that we are planning a wedding and need to save money, we shouldn't be spending our money on frivolous trips, right? Wrong. Instead of listening to the practical side of my brain tell me that the money is better off saved, I booked my flights to Vegas for a girls' weekend this year after Christmas! But that's not all... I've recently decided to take another trip without my dearest.
* Technically, a passport is required to cross the Canadian border, but it's such a frequently traveled route that they barely pay you any attention for crossing, and they definitely don't stamp your passport. Until recently, a passport wasn't even required and you could get across with a copy of your birth certificate and identification.
Places I visited as a child (in no particular order):
- Florida - my grandparents used to live there 7 months out of the year, so we visited them and went to Disney World!
- Georgia - on a trip to Florida, we visited friends of my parents, whom they actually met through those work conventions!
- Tennessee - Nashville, for a convention
- Kentucky - on the Nashville trip
- Missouri - Branson and St. Louis, for my uncle's wedding
- Indiana - Indianapolis, for the Children's Museum; Fort Wayne for dance competitions
- Nevada - Las Vegas, for a convention
- Hawaii - oh, wait... my parents didn't take us to that one. Twice.
- Arizona - Phoenix and Sedona
- New Jersey - Atlantic City, for a convention; Jersey Shore
- Maryland - various beach trips and a chorus trip that my mom chaperoned
- North Carolina - Outer Banks
- Massachusetts - Provincetown, for a whale-watching trip
- New York - NYC, for a choir trip in high school; Chautauqua, for an opera trip from a "summer enrichment" program I attended; Niagara Falls, for, well, Niagara Falls.
- Pennsylvania - where I grew up
- Ohio - we lived near the border, so Ohio is practically an extension of home
- West Virginia - like Ohio, I've been there frequently, and not really for vacation
So you could say that I did a fair amount of traveling by car when I was younger, and the only trip we flew to was Las Vegas. Then, when I went to college, I dated a guy from Philadelphia. I visited him and his family frequently enough that driving wasn't too convenient, so I racked up some frequent flyer miles through Southwest on $100 round-trips between Philly and Pittsburgh. But I don't count that as "traveling," even if it took me from flying "once" in my life to "more than I care to count."
However, you may notice that none of those travels required a passport. I don't think either of my parents have been out of the country before, which probably factored into why all of our vacations were domestic. My mom is also a firm believer that there are more than enough interesting and historical places to see in the U.S., or so it seems, because she never ran out of places to try to make us stop on our road trips (like Lucy the Elephant near Atlantic City). Regardless, I never needed a passport growing up. When I got to college, I always wanted to do Study Abroad, but being the busy bee that I am, I worked the whole way through college. I paid for everything myself, so I worked as much as humanly possible. When we would have a day off from school (or a week for Spring Break or Christmas), I just viewed that as more hours that I could make money! This mentality meant that I never took a Spring Break trip or studied abroad, because I couldn't bring myself to pay out a lot of money, while simultaneously giving up the opportunity to make money during the time off from school. Do I regret that I never took the opportunity to travel abroad? Maybe. Do I think it would have been possible? Maybe. Do I ultimately regret my choice to work instead? No. Instead I just looked through my friends' pictures on facebook of all of their Study Abroad trips in college, and when I felt bad, I just looked at my bank account to make myself feel better. Just kidding. Kind of.
After college, I started dating my fiance. After about 13 months of dating, we were invited to his uncle's wedding, which was in Tampa. Our first real trip together! We flew from Pittsburgh to Atlanta and then to Tampa (the last leg of which made me really sick!), and then back. I took the fact that we both survived the trip to be a good sign for our relationship. We enjoyed traveling with each other, and even though we had talked about it before, it became very clear that we wanted to travel together in the future.
Since that first trip, we've been to California twice (to do some sightseeing, visit family & friends, and see our dear Steelers play the Niners at Candlestick Park, the worst field in the NFL), the Jersey Shore twice, Philly once, and NYC once.
In 2011, a work trip took my fiance (then-boyfriend) across the pond to Israel for 2 weeks, which could be a story all in itself. This was his first trip out of the country, and required him to get his passport. Getting his passport sparked many conversations about potential future trips, and inspired me to get my passport (despite having any firm plans to go out of the country). In order to justify the passport fee, we decided to plan a trip to the easiest out-of-the-country locale, Canada. My fiance is a huge baseball
And then...
For Christmas last year, my wonderful then-boyfriend/now-fiance bought me a trip to Jamaica! I was convinced at that point that he was going to propose in Jamaica (but that's a story for another time). The surprise was that it wasn't just a trip for two, but best friend and her fiance (who got engaged just prior to Christmas) were coming along, too! Again, we took a trip out of the country over Memorial Day weekend. We had a fabulous time, and that could fill a whole blog post in itself (and probably will at some point when I feel reminiscent), but my main reason for bringing it up is that Jamaica was my first stamp in my passport! I was glad that I finally felt like it was worth having a passport for a trip.* I also got to experience a "foreign" country, new culture, different climate, and faaaaantastic food!
So now...
Now that we are planning a wedding and need to save money, we shouldn't be spending our money on frivolous trips, right? Wrong. Instead of listening to the practical side of my brain tell me that the money is better off saved, I booked my flights to Vegas for a girls' weekend this year after Christmas! But that's not all... I've recently decided to take another trip without my dearest.
You see, my business school does what they call a Global Research Practicum. In a nutshell, it's Study Abroad for graduate students, that takes a lot less time than Study Abroad for undergraduates. The course requires three meetings prior to the trip, and one meeting after the trip, and is a 3-credit course. So a coworker (potentially two coworkers) and I decided... we're going to Chile! The trip is over Spring Break (we finally get to go on a Spring Break trip!), March 2013. It costs a good deal of money, but now that I work full-time, I can afford the cost of the trip (one of my points of contention for trips in undergrad) and since I have the benefit of paid time off, I can take some vacation days and not miss out on pay (the other major point of contention). So, years later, I finally get to study abroad. I'm very excited to take this opportunity to travel and have once-in-a-lifetime experiences, while also getting credits towards graduation. You can't beat that!
* Technically, a passport is required to cross the Canadian border, but it's such a frequently traveled route that they barely pay you any attention for crossing, and they definitely don't stamp your passport. Until recently, a passport wasn't even required and you could get across with a copy of your birth certificate and identification.
