So where to begin? Born in Illinois, I grew up an “East Cobb snob” in the suburb of Marietta, a few miles north of Atlanta, Georgia. Life consisted of family dinners, swim meets, Nintendo, and barely passing High School. I had an interest in maps, though, and I always watched the evening news with Tom Brokaw, a habit my Mom gave me to show that more of the world existed outside of strip malls and Chick-fil-a. Eventually I graduated, and ready to explore this wide world around me, moved a whopping 75 miles east and attended the University of Georgia. While there I experimented with binge drinking, Fraternity pranks, true love, depression, veterinary medicine, Southern Comfort, and occasionally classes. None of this worked out very well, and in a short 8 months I was living at home again. Determined not to give up and attend the community college up the street, I opted to join the Army in the hopes of escaping the clutches of the southeast. This plan actually worked out well, as after 9 weeks in South Carolina and 4 months in Arizona I was on a flight bound for Seoul, Korea.
While my weeks in Seoul were spent on base, my weekends found me running around with a bunch of Canadians and Koreans, trying new music, new food, new dances, and new ideas. Six months later, they even convinced me to try a new place, Thailand. After clubbing in Chiang Mai and lounging on a beach with 10 people from 8 different countries, I knew the hooks were in me: the wanderlust was in full force. Seven months later, having a choice on where to wander next, I opted for the green hills of Germany, land of beer and futbol.
Germany (and by extension, the rest of Europe) was a revelation. I spent my free weekends in the car or on the trail, bouncing around everywhere my passport and limited budget could carry me. Skiing the Alps, reveling in London’s nightlife, having heated political discussions in a Stuttgart bar with ballerinas, sunning myself on the beaches of Mallorca – life became one grand travel adventure. This changed abruptly when I got handed orders to relocate to the sunny oasis of Kuwait to prepare for an invasion of their northern neighbor. After a brush with real poverty and a few with real danger, I escaped back “home” to Germany, and then made my timely exit from the Armed Services.
Having enjoyed it the first time around, I moved back to Arizona, this time to Phoenix, to get one of those undergraduate degrees everyone seemed to think were so important. Two years later with only a trip to Puerto Penasco, Mexico under my belt, I saddled up again for an adventure south of the Equator. After a week of mid-flight therapy on the beaches of Fiji, I popped down to Sydney, Australia to “study” political science for a semester. While there I managed to learn how to surf, get scuba certified on the Great Barrier Reef, and realize it was time to stop fucking around and have a relationship already. I also managed to attend class and educate my Aussie peers on the American “might makes right” foreign policy stance. Having sufficiently angered and educated them, I moved back on home to wrap up my degree, but not without stopping a week on New Zealand’s North Island to get into adventures with a random french dude.
So I’m here in Phoenix now, putting my degree to work, and attempting to save enough money to get me back on the road again. Next stop? Who knows – it’s a big world out there, and there’s still lots left to see.
