Travel
Although I've lived in Georgia the majority of my life, my road trips and travel destinations have seemed to be endless. My parents began taking my younger sister and I on "big" trips around the ages of five and seven. Our first time out of the country was in the Bahamas when I was four and she was two. After that, my parents usually didn't take us any farther than a few states over from our hometown in Atlanta, Georgia. As we got older, we started most of our travel in the United States and then began international travel as both her and I got older. We started close in places like Canada, Puerto Rico, Mexico, the Bahamas and Costa Rica. When I turned thirteen, we flew overseas for the first time to both Germany and France. Although I was young at the time, the cultures, experiences, and overall change from what I was used to in the United States sparked a light in me that made me want to continue to travel. Since I have turned twenty-one, I have traveled to three continents, twenty-one different countries, twenty-two states, and countless cities worldwide.
As shown on both maps, I have marked the places I have been so far. My passion for travel throughout high school has taken me across the world in college and to United States I've never been to. The opportunities and experiences that I have been blessed to be able to see first hand and come in contact with have positively changed my life forever. My outlook on situations, experiences, and simple everyday things change daily based what I've seen and encountered in both different areas of the U.S. and countries half way around the world. Because of my extended travel, I have been able to see things in a different light and be able to appreciate the "luxuries" the United States offers that many second and third world countries do not. A majority of my exposure abroad has been a humbling adventure to see cultural change and the everyday lives of individuals outside of the U.S. I have been able to see some of the most poverty-stricken places, but have also seen the most luxurious places and ways of life. Overall, traveling both domestically and internationally has impacted my life in more ways than I can express. I hope that with my job after graduation, I can continue to travel to more continents, countries, and states to be able to experience new cultures and new places.
