WANDERLUST - noun - a strong desire to travel; strong longing for or impulse toward wandering.

3rd Culture kid. lifelong traveler.

The term “Third Culture Kid” was coined in the 1950s to describe children who spent their formative years growing up in countries that weren’t their parents’ own, and that’s precisely how I grew up. While my father is from the United States and my mother is from Thailand, I grew up in neither; I spent my childhood and teenage years in Saudi Arabia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Egypt.

That upbringing - living in different countries and moving around every few years - instilled in me a lifelong obsession with travel. I somewhat facetiously tell people I get restless and antsy if I don’t leave the US for a foreign country at least once a year (somewhat facetiously because, to a certain extent, it’s actually true).

Growing up in different countries, immersed in entirely new cultures and having to learn entirely new languages every few years, was a remarkable experience; the regular travel that was a part of my life, in addition to the regular relocations, was likewise remarkable. As kids, my brothers and I found ourselves on safari in Kenya, crossing the English Channel from Dover to France in hovercraft, island hopping through the Galapagos, swimming around lakes in the Amazon rainforest, hiking amidst volcanic peaks in the Andes - we were endlessly fortunate to grow up as true “citizens of the world”. What’s even more remarkable - and something I was again endlessly fortunate to experience - was how much our parents supported our traveling the world alone and on our own. I was 15 the first time my parents let me travel to Spain and The Netherlands (from Ecuador, no less) on my own, and that wasn’t the last European adventure I’d find myself on before high school was done.

Nowadays, you can find some recurring themes in my travel - seeking out historical sights in grand European capitals, castles, locations tied to popular media (OK I’ll just say it - Harry Potter. I’m hopelessly obsessed with Harry Potter), trains, and numerous other passions and preoccupations get satiated through my travels.

When not traveling, I spend my time in Minnesota with my boyfriend and our energetic shelter rescue dog.

Full disclosure - there is a work purpose to this website. I use it as a way to refine my Squarespace and web development skills, along with my photography, writing and graphic design skills; I include both direct links to merchants and vendors I write about, as well as affiliate links (with a notation whenever that’s the case). I make my living writing, building websites, and doing digital marketing and this is a part of that. But I’m also passionate about travel and the enthusiasm I share about travel here is genuine and authentic. I mention and link to merchants and vendors here because I really did patronize them as part of my travels.

My hope is you might find some ideas and inspiration for your own travels through my posts, pics, and videos, and that folks might reach out to share their own ideas and inspiration with me! More than anything else, though, I hope this blog and the things I post can help generate or contribute to in others the kind of enthusiasm to travel I’m lucky enough to enjoy myself.

For a list of places I’ve been, where I’m going next, and other assorted travel stats I might include there, visit my Travel Stats page!