"You gotta get your boots on the ground." - Paul Hoff My Uncle Paul just has all the good ones. This quote is wonderful because I feel like it really describes my personal philosophy on traveling. I didn't really think I had a philosophy when it came to traveling, but this summer showed me otherwise. I had the privilege of traveling a lot this summer. I flew over 6,000 miles to China. I road tripped to about 10 different cities in the month of July. My sister and I drove 60 hours to Glacier in Montana (60 hours, I kid you not). So yeah, I traveled kind of a lot. Other than realizing that I will probably never move out of Wisconsin for the rest of my life, I also realized something about how I travel.
I don't want to see it all, I want to see all of it, wherever it is. I travel to become immersed in a new place, a new culture. I travel to live in the smells and sights and sounds of a place, not just to check it off my list and move on to the next place. One of my good friends has a list of all of the cities he wants to go to in Europe and the incredible thing is, he will probably see most of them. I think that is absolutely incredible, but it isn't how I desire to travel. I would much rather spend a few days (or weeks if I'm lucky) in one city in Italy than go to Rome, Milan, Florence, and Venice. I want to be there long enough for the man selling the bread on the corner to recognize me. I want to be there long enough for the fruit stand guy to know that when I gesture "two" I mean two bananas, not two kilos of bananas. I want to be there long enough that I just know which buses take me where. So I think Uncle Paul has a point. I don't want to road trip across America, because I'd just do it to say I road tripped across America. I'd rather take a month in part of a state and really get to know it, the ins and outs, the dirty underbelly, the cheapest place to buy coffee (it actually took me 3 years to learn this in EC...), and what it means when all of the children get dressed up on a Sunday morning. I need to get out of my car, away from the tour buses, off of the trains, and get my boots on the ground.
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December 2022
I'm guessing I'll have it all figured out by the time I turn 30.
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