February – March 2002 Intro Antarctica! I went to so many other amazing places on this trip, but.. Antarctica! How am I going to peel myself away to talk about anywhere else? I will try. But first, Antarctica. So, funny story, back in 2001 I was in a bookstore (travel section, obviously), browsing around, and […]
Journeys
Around the World in 53 Days
February – April 2001 Intro Name one thing potential employers don’t want to hear during a first interview. “I was fired from my last job for being lazy and inefficient” is probably up there, and so is “I don’t really work well with other people”. How about, “I have a seven-and-a-half week vacation planned in a […]
USA, México + Canada
March – September 2000 Intro Well, this is a little boring, honestly. But only because it’s book-ended by last year’s crazy trip through 19 countries, and next year’s crazy trip through 19 countries… so this ‘break’ year was warranted. But of course, I still had to go somewhere! This ‘journey’ actually consists of six mini-trips […]
Backpacking Through Europe
June – August 1999 Intro Yes! The defining trip of my youth… the post-college backpacking, hitchhiking, train-taking, country-hopping, hostel-staying trip of a lifetime. Except, I couldn’t wait until after graduation to do it, so I did it a full year before graduating. That travel bug was really starting to get bad. 72 days – two-and-a-half […]
Florida + the Bahamas
June 1998 Intro After successfully convincing the parents to take us to Canada for our family trip in 1996, I suggested Florida this year – Orlando, Cape Canaveral, Tampa, St. Petersburg… Disneyworld… and of course, my real hidden agenda, the Bahamas. At 19 years old, and with my sister at 23 – this was destined […]
Hong Kong, Macau + China
June 1997 Intro While my first time traveling out of the country alone was in 1993, that was as part of a tour group of students, so I wasn’t really alone. This trip, however, I consider as my first ‘real’ trip, for which I planned an itinerary, booked flights, and organized things myself — and […]
Toronto, Montréal + Québec
July 1996 Intro While I was growing up, my family and I would travel to the Middle East to visit family about every other year – so on the ‘off years’ in between those huge trips, we would often take shorter family summer vacations within California. But after getting a taste of Europe in 1990, […]
Jordan, Syria, Palestine, Israel
June – August 1995 Intro My mom had been wanting to visit the Holy Land sites in Israel for decades – the irony being that she was born in Damascus, only 3 hours from the Sea of Galilee, and lived most of her life in Amman, less than 3 hours from Nazareth, before moving to […]
London + Southern England
July – August 1994 Intro My first (and last?) trip ever with my sis. Not that we hate each other or anything like that! She just isn’t a huge fan of traveling (I know, right? How are we even related?!). My aunt moved to London from Amman in 1991, and after numerous invitations to visit, […]
Journey Through France
June – July 1993 Intro My first trip by myself! And, by “by myself”, I really mean “without my family”. This was an organized trip to France for high school French-language students to go and experience the history, culture, and of course – the language – of France, firsthand. Every year, my high school’s French […]