The Rain, the Rock, and the Marmot
This past summer, my parents and I traveled to Yosemite National Park in California for what I can say was an adventure of epic proportions and grueling obstacles. Our goal was to conquer the Half Dome...
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Speaking French In Ecuador
Rule number one to traveling: Study the native language for more than a week. That was something I had not taken into serious consideration as I hopped onto my plane. My destination was...
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Transcending Language Barriers with Manners: Life Lessons from the Japanese
Waking up at five am is never pleasing, especially on vacation. But the blaring alarm signaled a new day, the promise of adventure. With my legs still stiff from the 14-hour flight, I arose and peered...
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The Locals Say “Nica”
People didn’t really get it when I said I was going to Nicaragua for spring break. “Isn’t that dangerous?” “Oh, is it for a mission trip?” and “Where even is that?” were only a few of...
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Ten Popsicle Toes
When my mother announced the family would be traveling to Iceland for Christmas my stomach dropped. A California girl, the mere thought of Iceland(!) during wintertime (!) made my toes curl, but there...
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A Privilege Hidden Among the Sierras
All my life, my father has taught me about adventuring in the world. My sister and I always tentatively listen when he mimicks stories about his backpack travels in Alaska, recalling sights of mother...
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Through Their Eyes
Through my eyes luxury was defined as expensive cars, five star restaurants, and high class living. But through theirs it was clean running water, a safe home, and enough food for the day. When I first...
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A Thousand Ones
The silence is so strong it hurts my ears. It’s as if the people around me are trying not to wake the souls that lie below our feet. The water around us seems shadowy, but I know what is there. It’s...
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The Blossoming of Compassion
"Anything will help. God bless you." "Mother of 4." "Homeless. In Need." Everyday as I drive to school I pass signs resembling these. I sit nervously tapping my foot on the gas pedal trying to...
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Life at 10,000 Feet
They told me oxygen would be scarcer, but they didn’t tell me it was the mountains that would take my breath away. I was deep in the heart of the Peruvian Andes, in a small village called Ollantaytambo....
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Navigating the Dark in the City of Light
Travel is the insane desire to become lost. Lost in a culture, a language, lost in ourselves. And when I decided to study abroad for a year, I was completely unaware of how my world would change, of how...
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Storming Castles and Hunting Dwarves in Poland
As a kid with an incredibly active imagination, I loved acting out the stories that my Mom read to me or what I saw in movies. I taped flashlights to my arms to shoot lasers like Buzz Lightyear, and built...
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A Grand Design
No one had to tell me to feel the way I did. I felt it all on my own. With depths as bottomless as the ocean, and craters so vast they seemed to spread across the world forever, the view was like nothing...
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International Deprogramming: The truth About Nigeria
“So there I was, spear in hand,” I recounted to my thoroughly American friends, “The lion charged at me, jaws agape, snarling like the devil himself.” They’re all paying rapt attention...
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China in Transit
Hangzhou, China is beautiful in the spring. The weather is lovely, the trees are in bloom, and if you look above the buildings, the sky is even blue. On the west lies a long, gleaming lake; on the east...
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A Night on Battlefield 1864
The night was cold but the air was clean, so clean that the only thing that had polluted the perfect scent of the wilderness was the smell of fresh pine burning beside our camp smoldering away into...
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Is that….pepper???
I looked at the Styrofoam plate that held the cheesy lasagna and closed my eyes trying to convince myself to take a bite. Oh yeah. I forgot to mention; it was covered in bugs, not pepper. I recently...
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Beyond the Brass Handle
In first grade, my teacher asked us to bring in postcards from all the exotic places we’d been in our lives. My friends brought back little cards with photographs of beautiful beaches, tall towers,...
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A Different Type of Language
I wake up in a wooden hotel, the musty smell of morning fills the air. I get out of bed, hearing the creaking of the wooden floors beneath my feet. The entire hotel must have heard this through the...
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Feeling the Land of the West
Gone was the sea breeze and moist air of our salty South Carolina coast. Here in Kanab, Utah our lips cracked like the sand tresses of the red canyons we gazed upon. This place made us dig deep into...
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More Than Just a Museum Visit
Every summer I visit family in Seattle. The weather is always a million degrees cooler than Houston, TX, where I live. I love the change in scenery and lifestyle. Since I live in the suburbs, I am unacquainted...
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The Balcony
The four hour and thirty minute drive to Kemah, Texas was enough to give me the audacity to jump out the window and join the bugs as they splat against the passing cars. I sleep half the time and...
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Finding Myself from the Summit in Colombia
"I am American. I was born in America. My skin complexion might be slightly darker but I am American no matter what.” I had these words engraved in my thoughts and no one believed them more than I...
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The Unconventional Ideal Vacation
Imagine your ideal vacation. Where are you -- On a beach, a jungle, or by the pool in five star hotel. What are...
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Rediscovering My Roots
400 years of my family’s heritage lies rooted south of the American border, in Guadalajara, a blossoming city located in the heart of Mexico. An economic recession drove my immediate family out of the...
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Hiraeth for Haiti
For my spring break of my senior year, I applied to go on a mission trip to Haiti. To my delight I was accepted to go, and the day we were set to go arrived quickly. The first day was water truck day,...
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Exciting Expeditions In Ecuador
Traveling is always an exciting experience, especially when it’s somewhere foreign. Just recently, I spent 10 days exploring and volunteering in Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands in South America. Not...
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Getting to Know Paris
I believe that the point of traveling is to escape a person's normal lifestyle, to break the habits of everyday lives. I grew up in a family of travel; we are always looking for new places to go in...
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Irish I Could’ve Stayed
Going into this trip, I was more excited to see cute red headed Irish boys than I was to see the Cliffs of Moher. I was more excited for the puns I would put as my captions on Instagram than I...
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Among the Smoggies
The smoggies is what they were called. Or at least that’s what my grandparents, who on a humanitarian trip with a local church, had told me they were called. Made up largely of third and fourth generation...
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Yellow Flowers and Invisible Fear
Fear is the one, invisible deterrent that stops me from making the most of my life. Fear is not a person or a physical obstacle, but I too often live my life dominated by its unseen hand. But...
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From Russia with Love
The boat that had taken us through the waterways of St. Petersburg docked at the entrance to Peterhof, signalling that at last we had arrived at the mystical palace and its famed gardens. Although our...
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Face to Face with the Top Predator of the Ocean
Orcinus Orca. The Killer Whale. They do justice to this nickname—a pod of orcas can defeat a Great White Shark. They are the top predator of the ocean. However, they are also curious,...
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Mint Tea and Cookies
Not even three days into the service trip in Rabat, Morocco, and already I heard something that seems to reflect the culture and resonates with me very deeply. “Service like this is what feeds...
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How to Survive a Volcano Hike
It’s a tradition in my family that we take at least one cruise annually. Last summer, it was a seven day cruise to the Southern Caribbean. We piled into the car, drove to the airport,...
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A Stitched Portrait of a Chinese Garden
To the left of my bed is my most prized possession: a collection of pictures, each representing a place explored and a lesson learned. My love for travel stemmed from a young curiosity towards adventure...
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A Mandir Medley
The sun sparkled high on this specific Sunday morning in Chicago, the weather perfect for the cultural encounter that awaited me. Yet, I was hesitant to interact with a society whose values and traditions...
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Foxes and Persimmons: Defining the Hoosier State
Our small group of teenagers huddled together as we followed our counselor into the clearing. Not three feet before us, the ground fell away into an earthen waterfall of rock and creeper vines. Thousands...
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Antarctic Marathon Adventure
One does not simply walk a marathon in Antarctica, at least not without three layers of jackets and sweaters -- I learned that the hard way. It was March 9, 2014. I, filled with adrenaline, looked anxiously...
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Too Close for Comfort
As I looked out the car window, we passed a short concrete hut-like building. And then we passed another, and in the next village, another one. I asked my mom what these strange buildings were. I had never...
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St. Lucian Paradise
The Caribbean islands have long been considered the ideal travel destination for their beautiful beaches, sunny weather, and vibrant culture. The island of St. Lucia embodies all of these notions and so...
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The Power of People: Helping Rebuild in the Birthplace of Jazz
Pulling apart a roof is not as simple as it sounds. As I pried the warped and rotting shingles away from a house damaged by Katrina, I felt a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment that I had never...
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Seoul-searching
Over the past few years, I've chastised my friend for being obsessed with Korean culture without understanding what Korean culture really is. I was angry because I thought her interaction with Korea, one...
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My Heart of Turquoise
I had never seen so many junipers in my life. The green, bushy plants stretched for miles into the desert of New Mexico like they could go on forever. We were far outside the city limits...
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A New Set of Cultural Binoculars
“You’re just different. You look like us, and your family is from here, but you’re so American,” Marilyn told me for the twentieth time. I understood well enough that being first generation...
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Remedy for Myopia
Lift up your eyes and see Windy Gusts o’er ocean corn: Prairie Vanishing. Lift up your feet and soar; Clouds stooping to harvest rain So farmers...
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China’s Treasure
I’m here. Ancient stones are only steps away from my touch. I see a high point in the glorious distance and make it my goal to at least make it there. I take my first step and just admire the wall itself....
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Yellowstone: A Disaster Only A Family Could Love
At the beginning of eighth grade, at an ungodly hour in the morning, my 36 classmates and I gathered at the airport in t-shirts, shorts, and hiking boots. Packed in our suitcases were outfits similar...
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One Love
I ease my water shoes into the chilly water, trusting our leader to guide us safely through the Dunn’s River Falls in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. Our excursion group stayed together as directed: holding hands...
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