It's important that we share our experiences with other people. Your story will heal you and your story will heal somebody else. When you tell your story, you free yourself and give other people permission to acknowledge their own story. - Iyanla VanzantFor the most part, my parents and sisters are vacationers. My family has been to Florida every year since I was 5. They like it because we know what to expect when we go there and because we are surrounded by other people from Ontario. In 2011, we went on a cruise to Costa Maya and Cozumel, Mexico; Belize City, Belize; and Grand Cayman. We barely left the ports at the destinations and our favourite part of the trip was really the time we spent together on the boat. We vacation to escape "reality" and for the sake of being together.
My interest in getting lost and meeting disaster as often as possible in different countries must come from somewhere else. My dream as a kid was to go on exchange. As a Rotarian, my mum had invited people from India, Sweden, Germany, New Zealand and Australia (for starters) to stay with us. I also inexplicably loved the French language before I started learning it at school. When the opportunity presented itself to spend a month in France, I had my parents' full support. As a 14 year old, I spent one month with a family living near Chalon-sur-Saône, and I know that this experience has had a huge impact on my life because I always find ways to work it into conversation. In 2010, I participated in the International Rotary Youth Leadership Award conference in Montréal, which was one of the most amazing weeks of my life and has given me a better understanding of the fact that countries are more than their stereotypes. Why do I love putting myself in situations where there are so
many opportunities for misunderstandings and conflicts and crises? I
don't think you can learn anything about your own culture and bias by
being safe. You have to find different perspectives in order to really
question your own beliefs. All of this has led to my Masters of Education exploring culture and travel blogs and vlogs - what is culture? how do we communicate it?
At the age of 7, I presented myself with two career choices - teaching or writing. As I've grown older, I recognize that the people I admire don't limit themselves to one thing. I am a teacher, first, but I have maintained and nurtured my love of literature and writing. This blog is one outlet for that desire to communicate with family, friends, and the public. Here, I catalogue the many journeys of my life in the context of trips to other cities and countries. Poetry is another form of expression that permits me to have a different type of connection with writing. (If it interests you, feel free to read some of it here).
And the "travel bug" is a real thing. The more places I visit, the more I want to visit. My current list of travel destinations is:
- South Korea - I stumbled into kdramas on Netflix and haven't looked back. I now think of myself as part of the BTS' ARMY family and can understand and speak basic Korean. Oops! So... now I realllllly want to go.
- Brazil
- Canada - I have always wanted to road trip across my country
- Iceland
- New Zealand
- Cuba
- Morocco
- Czech Republic
- Hungary
- Turkey
- Bali
- India
- Vietnam
- Colombia
- Algeria
- Greece
- Croatia
- Peru
- Japan
- Denmark
- Egypt
- Argentina
- Russia
- Chile
- Nigeria
On to the next adventure!
And a quick note to thank all the readers, who come from the countries below:
visited 91 states (40.4%)
Create your own visited map of The World or Brazil travel guide for Android
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