In 1966, the summer I was ten, we went to a new state: Pennsylvania. We visited Gettysburg, Amish Country, and Hershey.
Somehow I was becoming aware of the idea of going somewhere I'd never been before, and I came to wish I could go to other places. Later my family took a vacation in New England, and I added Massachusetts and Connecticut, plus my dad made a wrong turn (possibly on purpose, though I will never know) and we ended up crossing the state line into Rhode Island. On that trip we visited Sturbridge Village and Mystic Seaport.
My first time on an airplane was in 1974, when I came home from college in Syracuse for the weekend on an American Airlines jet to Kennedy Airport.
My next opportunity to add states wasn't until my sophomore year in college, when I and two high school friends drove to Florida during winter break. We spent a few days in Fort Lauderdale before heading to Disney World for New Year's Eve 1975. On that trip I added Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia to my list of visited states.
I'm not sure when I set the goal of visiting all fifty states, but gradually I found my way to more and more of them. In my early twenties I took a bus trip across the country to visit my sister in southern California, but I was really just as interested in visiting the many states in between. I went with a friend on a trip to Montreal and Quebec City, during which we drove through Vermont and New Hampshire. Later I moved to New Orleans, then Boulder, then central Illinois. It was while teaching in Illinois that I had my first opportunities to do choir tours to some additional states where I'd never been, plus my first visit to Washington, DC, and to Niagara Falls, where we crossed to the Canadian side and the province of Ontario. I also made my first three trips to Europe on choir tours during that time. And I went on a six-week car trip with a friend that took me through a number of new states and Canadian provinces.
In 1997 I decided to make my first solo trip to Europe: a long weekend in Paris. Then I invited a friend to go with me, so it turned out not to be a solo trip.
By the time I moved to Seattle in 1998, I'd been to all the US states except Alaska, Hawaii, and Maine. I took an Alaska vacation in 2003, went to Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia in 2005, and finally hit Hawaii in 2011.
I have also expanded my European travel, recently completing my second solo trip to Europe. In 2009 I spent two weeks in Italy, visiting Siena, Florence, Lucca, and the Cinque Terre. And in May and June of 2012 I went to Denmark, Sweden, Estonia, Finland, and Iceland.
By my best count, I've landed at and taken off from 43 different airports in the USA plus 13 in Europe. Some of those were merely layovers, but I still think that's a decent number, considering what a late start I got.
But clearly, I'm not a great world traveler. I have a limited number of stories to share about my own travels, and it would be beyond arrogant to suggest that I have enough experience to make me an expert whose advice should be followed by other travelers.
Plus, there are so many sources for travel advice on the web. My last two vacations were planned and booked almost entirely at my computer. The last thing I would have needed (and the last thing anyone else needs) is more information to help with deciding on an itinerary, buying tickets, reserving lodging, or arranging tours. I got plenty of advice, both sought after and unsolicited. I won't dispense any of my own on this blog.
There are also plenty of travel blogs out there that describe trips taken by other travelers. I have a few of my own. As a test, I picked some of the most unlikely destinations I could think of. I found travel blogs describing trips in Sudan, Eritrea, North Korea, Syria, and Somalia. There are some fascinating stories worth reading about trips to exotic places I will probably never get to. And even if I never go anywhere that hasn't been written about ad nauseum, I will certainly create blogs describing my future travels. But this isn't that.
So what is this? I am hoping this will be a way to be on vacation in my imagination, even when I'm physically in my regular world. And I hope it will be a way for readers to come along with me.
There are also plenty of travel blogs out there that describe trips taken by other travelers. I have a few of my own. As a test, I picked some of the most unlikely destinations I could think of. I found travel blogs describing trips in Sudan, Eritrea, North Korea, Syria, and Somalia. There are some fascinating stories worth reading about trips to exotic places I will probably never get to. And even if I never go anywhere that hasn't been written about ad nauseum, I will certainly create blogs describing my future travels. But this isn't that.
So what is this? I am hoping this will be a way to be on vacation in my imagination, even when I'm physically in my regular world. And I hope it will be a way for readers to come along with me.
