I've always had a keen sensation that I was meant to travel the world and visit as many cities as I can while I'm still emboldened by youthful vigor. I've traveled through many of the states and I've even flown seven thousand miles across the ocean to China. To me, travel is one of the most meaningful things out there and adventure is always welcome. This isn't me bragging about all the sunrises I've seen, the sights I've witnessed, or the places I've travailed. This is one guy speaking to others about why you should travel every chance you get- not only because you don't know what the future has in store for you, but because traveling opens up opportunities just as much as it broadens the horizon of your mind.
From the wee age of four I've traveled in every sense of the word. I moved from the vicinity of my hometown Louisville, Kentucky to Matthews, North Carolina (a small town just outside of Charlotte, North Carolina- keep it in your prayers as well). My parents and I left behind most of what was familiar to us and started our lives in North Carolina and haven't regretted it since. Travel opened up job and educational opportunities in this instance. I joined the Cub/Boy Scouts when I was in first grade and thanks to the program I've traveled far and wide for nearly fifteen years of my life.
Come January, I will have been to or flown over twenty-eight of the fifty United States of America, and I can only hope I get the chance to visit the others as well. The majority of my fondest memories involve traveling on summer vacations to Sanibel and Captiva Island in Florida, hiking across the New Mexico backcountry in 2011 with a crew of some of my closest friends at the time, and splitting my first summer of college between two and a half months abroad in China and traveling across several states visiting landmarks such as Gettysburg (for the first time since I was very little) and Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob.
Whoever says the only way to travel is to travel outside of the United States or wherever else you may call your home isn't broadening their perspective enough. Traveling should meaningful whether it is fifty miles to a campground with some friends or five thousand miles across an ocean to an entirely different continent and culture. I had some of the best days of my young life In cities such as Shanghai and Beijing, but I've had many more memorable moments when traveling and some have simply been going camping in the winter and waking up to surprise snowfall in the Pisgah National Forest.
Whether you're traveling to a new job, a new opportunity, a new life, a new house, or merely a new town to stay the night before resuming your four week jaunt across the continental United States, you should know one thing: you'll never be alone. If you're looking for a deeper meaning in my writing, then here it is. All of us are traveling on our own paths and however winding and turning they may become we will never be left out in the cold alone. Whether you're traveling physically or spiritually or mentally, there's always going to be a destination whether you know it or not. But once you end up in the right place at the right time, you'll know and maybe even understand it.
Come January I will be traveling to California for what looks to be a promising Interim 2016 adventure and I truly can't wait. Whether I'm in the great outdoors or amid thousands of people in a bustling city, I always enjoy seeking out adventure even among unfamiliar faces and obscure references. Journeys are of the mind and body and soul, and they should always be treated as such. Humans are friendly creatures who weren't meant to be alone and whatever paths we are on will always take us to crossroads we are meant to reach within ourselves and with other people.
