I love traveling more than anything, and just as I feel I have inherited this from my parents, I would like to pass it on to my future kids eventually.
When my parents were living in Oklahoma and pregnant with me, they made a goal to try to get me to visit every continental US state before I graduated high school. The only state that I never made it to before I graduated, aside from Hawaii and Alaska, was Florida.
Traveling around and moving around a lot as a kid taught me so many valuable life lessons and gave me a plethora of interesting stories to tell all the people I meet in my day-to-day life. There are so many times when my family and I have done something on a whim and ended up sharing a special bonding moment. My favorite example is when we were driving through the North Dakota Badlands, and we stopped at a local diner for food. We happened to see a flyer advertising a night hike for stargazing in the Badlands National Park and ended up having a fantastic time together. That night was truly such a beautiful one to share and one I will always remember when thinking about my family.
Not only has traveling gifted me many stories to tell but I’ve also learned a lot about how to navigate transportation, such as bus stations, subways, trains, airports, and driving routes in different states and cities. I have learned how to navigate different kinds of roads and unfamiliar modes of transportation and even how to walk around in big cities at night safely.
On top of this, I’ve become incredibly comfortable with meeting and talking to strangers and making memories that still hold such a special place in my heart. There have been times when I’ve met strangers, and they’ve told me something about the town or have even helped me and my family out by paying for a meal for us, which happened in New Orleans. I’ve learned how to make friends with all different types of people and how to be really good at small talk and getting to know other people. This has been the biggest skill I’ve learned that has immensely helped me when moving to different schools or even moving across the country.
There are so many incredible things that I’ve learned by traveling a lot growing up that I value incredibly and hopefully will pass on to my future kids. Overall, I’m just so grateful to have grown up in a family that put such a huge focus on embracing change and becoming more and more comfortable with it.