This story was originally published on Tapinto Greater Olean in the Let’s Tap About It column.
There is something in the air when I wake up on the day of a trip. Whether it is a road trip or a plane ride, I wake up feeling jittery.
Brushing my teeth one final time in my home, locking the door behind me and getting in the car feels like I am watching someone else do it. I feel like I am already gone. When I finally leave for my destination is when it hits me the most. That I am not just going on a trip. I am going on an adventure.
Growing up, my family was incredibly low income. This is something that affected me as a kid when I would get asked in class why I am wearing “boy’s clothes.”
A moment that stuck with me the most was in high school. For some reason I do not remember what year or grade it was. But the teacher told the class that we were to play a game. Everyone started at a line in the middle of the classroom. There was a PowerPoint of experiences. If you experienced whatever was on the slide, you stepped forward. If you did not, you could step back or choose not to move at all. At the end of the game, I was in the very back of the class. The game was supposed to represent the differences in all of us, but it made me feel so embarrassed and poor. Something I remember stepping back for is vacation. At that point in my life, I had never taken a vacation anywhere. My family simply never had the money for it.
So, I made up my mind that after high school I would take a vacation.
My first vacation did not happen until May of this year. I have taken road trips before. By this point I had been to Chicago, Toronto, Rochester and other cities in the country. They were exciting too because I would always tell myself “I’m going somewhere new.” My first vacation would be out of the country. My two roommates were graduating from St. Bonaventure University, and they wanted to take a graduation trip. Along with my third roommate we put our heads together and eventually decided on the Dominican Republic.
My heart stopped when the airplane took off from John F. Kennedy International airport toward Punta Cana where our resort was. I realized when I was in the air that I was leaving the United States for an experience, an adventure, somewhere new. Somewhere I have never been before.
The Dominican Republic was like stepping into a different world. The sights, the smells, are different from what I see when walking around my hometown of Buffalo. While I was there, I ate food that I have never eaten before. It was stepping into a different culture, a new world for me.
I went on an excursion, and while taking a chairlift up the mountain, I looked to the side and felt my breath catch. All around and to the side of me were dark green hills and mountains. There were farms that looked like little white specks on the hills since I was so far up. It was nature in a way that I have never seen. Clean, quiet and uninterrupted.
That is when I knew I wanted to have that feeling over and over again. That I want to step into a country and feel amazed. I never want to be confined to one job, one house, one city. I am not living to my fullest extent when I feel bound to one place. So, I decided that I won’t be.
That is why I love traveling. It is freedom. It is life.
Read the original at: Let’s TAP About It: Why I Love Traveling | Greater Olean, NY News TAPinto