Haiti
I take a big breath in, and the smells of burning trash fill my lungs. Though it is an unpleasant first wiff it makes my heart smile and all I can think is, "it's good to be back."...
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HBCU Tour
The best trip I have ever taken was on a tour bus going up the southern east coast. I went on it when I was a sophomore in High School....
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Of Traveling to the Beginning of Freedom
A little over two years ago, my family got a chance to take a trip to the New England area of the United States because of a benefit my father had gained at his workplace. While we...
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The African Field of Dreams
Throughout the canoe ride across Lake Bunyonyi, all I could think about was building my soccer field. We had come to Uganda, East Africa from the U.S. through Brussels to work with Juna...
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Cabo-The Many Sides
This past summer my family and I decided to get away from town and vacation to Cabo San Lucas located at the tip of Baja California. When I arrived I expected it to be like any other happening vacation...
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A Trip For Someone Else: Puerto Peñasco
I knew what Mexico looked like. It was beautiful, rich with culture, and flowing with a language that made the soul dance. I also knew that a fun time could be developed by everyday accessories. I knew...
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My Trip To Australia
Going to Australia was a chance of a lifetime. I was there this past summer of 2009 for five weeks. I am really glad...
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Travel essay
My name is Michelle Norden and I love taking road trips. One of my favorite ones is when I was in volleyball and my team had to go up to Gillette for a tournament. We had to be...
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Summer Breezes of Paradise
Secluded out in the middle of the ocean, just off the coast of Florida awaits white beaches, unimaginably clear ocean water, and the atmosphere of the perfect island getaway. Never...
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Guatemala Mission Trip
In the Bible, Philippines 4:13 says " I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength." This verse has impacted my faith and my life in so many ways. During the summer...
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Trip to Turkey
I have always said that some families buy nice cars or some families buy big houses, but my family, we travel. I have been to more than half of the United States, Mexico,...
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Vacation to Home
The morning is just light enough to distinguish blurred human figures already bustling through the streets of Beijing. I lie in my bed listening as the voices outside...
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Chicago Connections
As soon as I stepped out of the car the fumes and smog hit me. I was no longer in the suburbs of the mid-western state of Iowa, my hometown. Squinting through the sun and smog, the...
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The Other Side of the United States
Coming from Idaho and never traveling farther east than Utah, I could just feel in my bones, this was going to be a whole new experience. There were five of us all together and we were headed to see...
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A Trip to Costa Rica
In Costa Rica, it feels as though the entire world has slowed down. Time is irrelevant. The days are long, and yet short. I had fallen into the charm of the small village called Cerritos within the...
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My Coloradan Road Trip
When I arrived off the plane in Colorado I was greeted by hugs from my aunt and cousin. It was a happy Rooney Family Reunion. The time was 3:00pm MST, but my body was set to EST which would be 5:00pm...
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Mission Jamaica
Superman, Spiderman, and Batman all risk their lives to save the world. Although average teenagers cannot fulfill these impressive tasks, help can be offered in minute ways. “We can do no great things-...
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A Journey Into the Unknown in a Mega City
"Thank you,” I said to the bus driver as I stepped out of the bus. He was my regular driver whom I saw everyday. I walked home down the same path I walked everyday. I wondered...
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French Fever
The city of love! The city of lights! Baguettes for breakfast, snails as a snack and cheese galore! Wine all the time, cigarettes all around, and berets abound! Sadly, this wildly stereotypical depiction...
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Emerald Water Memories
When reflecting on a significant tradition in my life, I feel sand surrounding my feet and sun rays quickly warming my skin. I hear waves crashing into the shore and I see seagulls flying above, looking...
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A World Away from Home
As I step off the airplane all I am thinking about is if the rest rooms in the Nairobi, Kenya airport are sanitary, because I desperately need one after flying for fourteen hours. I don’t even take...
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Miso Queasy
I began to gag as something slid down my throat; it was long (I had assumed, and really hoped, that it was a noodle) and had nodules on it, much like a tentacle of some...
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Liverpool/London trip!
For my dad’s 50th birthday, my family decided to surprise him with a gift that none of us would ever forget. We bought him a book about the Beatles. No, that wasn’t the surprise! The surprise was written...
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Tijuana, Mexico: An Eye-Opening Trip
Gripping my father’s coat, I gazed upon the unfamiliar land with awe and curiosity. My forehead trickled with sweat and my heart raced uncontrollably. Each step became heftier and slower as I approached...
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China, A Second Home
Exhausted after fourteen hours of flight time I looked at my new surroundings, the Beijing airport. I realized my journey across the world had just ended, but at the same time freshly begun. Thinking about...
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An Unexpected Beauty
Have you ever heard of the advice to arrive two hours before your flight is scheduled to leave? Well, that is exactly what my family and I did not do for our flight to Phoenix, Arizona last summer. We...
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My Trip to the Moon
The bus took us to many impressive sights that day; geysers spraying water and steam like enormous earthbound teapots, thundering waterfalls cascading into fresh, pure rivers, the cavernous crack of the...
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My India
Fear. Bombs. Blood. Screaming. TERROR. This was all I could see, hear, and think about while visiting one of Mumbai, India’s exclusive malls. All I could do was watch the people in the mall, with...
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The Becoming of Appreciation
My buoyant ambiance is dampened...
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Worlds Apart, Closer than Ever
It was a 24 hour flight from Maryland to Ilo Ilo City, Philippines. It was how my family and I spent our Christmas, which was also my older sister’s birthday. But it was a dream we had all shared since...
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With Clouds Beneath My Feet
I stood in front of a small wood building that almost blended into the alpine landscape around it. An overstuffed backpack dangled off my shoulders, full of rented mountaineering gear that I though made...
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Most Cars Don’t Come Back: A Final Trip to Croatia
The airports in Germany won't allow you to take rented vehicles into eastern Europe. This puzzled my parents and I, because in two weeks we were about to take a road trip to Croatia. We...
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The Other Side of Jamaica
A perfect picture: a palm tree on a deserted beach, a starlit sky, the sound of the waves crashing against the shore. I dig my toes into the sand trying to take in every inch, every sound, and every scent...
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Niagara Falls
A family of three is going for a boat ride down the Niagara River. They are enjoying themselves when suddenly an unthinkable thing happens. The motor on their boat quits working. Normally this would not...
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If Thoreau Went Backpacking
The second night was much like the first. I stripped off my pack, this time remembering to clear an area, and I even had time to cook dinner before crawling into my mobile grave. I felt a short-lived...
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Costa Rica
It was Costa Rica, a vision of crowded, colorful houses and flat tin roofs caked in flaky, thick rust, and hillocks of kaleidoscopic litter cascading down the dirty streets. It was the sun, the blistering...
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My Jamaican Heart
On February 21, 2008, I boarded a plane for Montego Bay, Jamaica, excited for what God had in story for me. Little did I know that I would leave part of my heart in Jamaica. During the eleven days that...
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Girls Trip: Massanutten, VA
Girls Week Out. No dads allowed, no boys, just females in all our high-maitenance glory. One week at a ski resort in Virginia: five girls in four rooms, two stories, two kitchens,...
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Southern Africa
During months of anticipation, I knew Africa would be life-changing...
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Luvianos
We were to depart from Dulles International Airport, at 5:00pm, and arrive at Mexico City International airport at 9:30pm. Those were the simple instructions given to my eight year old sister, my eleven...
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Discovering the Roots of My Personality
In Memoriam On August 19, 1692, Martha Carrier of Andover was hung as witch in Salem, Massachusetts. She is one of the witches about whom many people know nothing. To me, she is the most interesting...
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An Unexpected Opportunity
Nigel no Monogatari (The Story of Nigel) On the humid evening of August...
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N.O.L.A. and Me
The last week of August 2005, a natural disaster struck the southern United States and impacted millions of lives. Hurricane Katrina caused grief, tragedy, and despair. But for...
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The Experiment In International Living: Turkey 2007
I pushed a seed...
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7,000 Miles Away But Right Next Door: My Trip to Beijing
Orange, blue, red, yellow signs touting the taxi cabs, the restaurants, the money changing stations lined the airport terminal. The air, an acrid, foreign aroma filling my lungs, left me with an indecipherable...
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A Climb Up Mount Tai During Our Summer Vacation in China
The eighteen flights of precipitous, stone steps soar upwards, a 5000-foot ladder into the clouds. On overcast days the effect is eerie: just yards ahead, the path is hidden in swirling mist. There is...
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Yup, I Brought My Calculator
There's no way around it. I'm a math nerd. It was the night before my first trip out of the United States, to the distant land of Egypt. I was soon to discover a realm of striking poverty, ancient architecture,...
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Hope in Times of Helplessness
Sometimes we may feel we are hanging on by a thread, and often that thread is the one thing keeping us connected to humanity. On December 3, 2004 as I walked into Dairy Queen I already had a premonition...
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A Bunch of Really Old and Really Tall Trees: Sequoia National Park
When my parents first informed my brothers and me that our summer vacation was going to be spent at Sequoia National Park in southern California, I was disappointed. We were going...
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Amazon
Yeah, sure I'm in IB Biology and my mom is a conservation biologist, but I'm not quite the rainforest type. As a seventeen year old, I prefer our nocturnal sleeping schedules as opposed to the early jungle...
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Auschwitz
By the time November comes around in school, the band room is buzzing with rumors of what the next band trip will be. Last year, countries like China, Italy, and Spain were coming out of the mouths of...
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Unbreakable in New Orleans
My mother collects Christmas ornaments. She buys them everywhere we go. Every vacation, road trip, journey -- each place we visit becomes a decoration to hang proudly on our tree....
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The Forbidden Island of Kaho’olawe
Kaho'olawe; also known as Kohemalamalama'okanaloa, is translated as "the holy genitals of the Ocean God Kanaloa" and is the only island throughout Polynesia to be named after a God. The following are my...
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My Not So Audrey-Hepburn-Wind-Blowing-In-Your-Hair-Roman-Holiday Kind of Experience
St. Augustine once proclaimed that "The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page." With blistered feet, rain-drenched hair, and aching bones, my first introduction to the European...
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