the WHY
Those of you who have joined me on this journey since I launched already know some basic things about me- I am a golfer, I love Moscow mules, and my favorite days are rainy days. But what you may not know is why I'm here, what sparked my idea to blog, and where I hope this adventure takes me some day. So I figured I would answer some of those questions, and help you get to know more about me!
I took my first big trip in the summer of 2000 when I was 5. My family and I went to Greece, and although I don't remember a lot of that trip, there are some snapshots I have committed to memory that I frequently find my way back to if I need an escape. To this day, I can still feel the hot, sticky air breezing through my ear-length tangled blonde mess of a head of hair. I can taste the salty Aegean sea on my lips, and I can hear my dad and my cousin Nikos rejoicing when they were finally reunited in Athens after spending many years apart. I can bring myself back to that trip, where I first realized just how small I was, and how big this world is.
Travel has always been a part of my life- if we weren't preparing for our upcoming trip, we were planning the next one. My mom would buy guide book after guide book on wherever we decided to go next, and today each of those books sits on a shelf in the office I write from, reminding me of the time we took my mom's side of the family to Tuscany and rented a villa outside of Cortona, our jam-packed weekend in Istanbul, and the 10 days I spent in Ireland with my high school choir. So when people ask me if I have a moment that I realized traveling wasn't just a part of my life, it was my life, I can't answer that. There hasn't been just one single defining moment. My life is strung together by rounds of golf and traveling.
There is, however, one defining moment in which I realized that becoming a travel blogger was not only possible, but a goal of mine. The summer after my freshman year of college, I took a May-Term course through my university for which we traveled to Barcelona for a class in photography. While I could go on about how absolutely incredibly beautiful and exciting the trip was, I want to share with you what my professor shared with me. We were given an assignment to create a verbal photograph of a moment- they couldn't be longer than a paragraph, and had to put our classmates and professor right in the moment we described. So, the day it was assigned, I wandered through a few neighborhoods until I found the perfect spot. You’re sitting on a bench, in the middle of El Born (the neighborhood we lived in). It’s approximately 1:27pm.
The air smells of a clean, crisp summer day and freshly baked bread. There’s a slight breeze, creating the perfect 75-degree day. A shady sycamore tree stands proud and tall before me. I look up at the bright blue sky that flickers between the leaves on the trees, and I think about the simple perfection of the moment. Now, I smell weed, there’s an old lady being pushed by her husband? in a wheelchair, two gay men walk past, someone sneezes, and the Pharmacia re-opens after a siesta. The old, shriveled up woman who sits on the steps of Santa Maria Del Mar stands, reaches her arms above her head, looks up at the sky, and sits back on her step- third from the bottom. Then, suddenly, the breeze picks up, a man walks over, picking through a scrap pile, pushing a shopping cart wearing torn jeans, an untucked yellow-green polo, possibly Asian, smells bad. He smiles at me, and pushes his cart on to the next scrap pile.
It was this moment. 1:27pm on a beautiful May day in Barcelona. The light switch flipped on in my head, and I realized then and there that this was something I was passionate about. Writing about my adventures was something I cared about, and loved.
Give me a beautifully written piece of iconic literature (Proust, Beckett, Tolstoy), and maybe 3 days later you would see draft #47 of a paper. Tail between my legs, I would turn it in, praying that my professors would overlook my weak thesis and improper MLA formatting and be able to see that I had, indeed, read the novel, I just couldn’t put what was in my head into a formal paper. But ask me a question about myself, my friends and family, or my adventures, and instantly we both would go back in time. I have a voice. I have a story, and I’m hoping I can put you in each moment just as I am able to relive them time and time again.
Granted, it took me almost 4 years to make this dream a reality. I just wanted to be sure this was something I wouldn't give up on. So, although I knew almost nothing about web design, had no logo or branding, and was terrified beyond belief, I took the leap. I had an idea and a dream and decided this was the perfect time to jump in, and give this blog all I have.
My goal throughout this journey is to take you with me wherever I go. I want to bring some of the most amazing corners of the earth to life through your screen, and I want to encourage you to go and see them. At the heart of all of this is a quote from Hans Christian Andersen that I first read in its entirety when I was in Copenhagen in 2013.
"To move, to breathe, to fly, to float, to gain all while you give, to roam the roads of lands remote, to travel is to live".
The final phrase of the quote is probably the most famous part, but to me, HCA's words encapsulate everything I love about traveling, and I've kept them near and dear to my heart.
If I've learned anything in the time it has taken me to develop my brand, create my content, and spread the word about this adventure of mine, it's that sometimes I just need to keep clicking. Click around to figure out how to format a post, click to officially 'go live', click to keep learning and continue making this dream a reality. This isn't easy- especially when you don't always know what to do and how to do it. But gosh, it sure is fun.
So, thanks for joining me on this wild ride.
