I love to travel! I love experiencing new places, new sites, new people, learning history and culture, trying some new foods (I’m not a foodie and I’m a picky eater, but I try my best!), practicing new languages, and stepping out of my comfort zone. The more I travel, the more I realize what a learning experience it is and I wish that everyone had the time, freedom, and financial ability to travel more.

This summer one of my best friends and I spent two weeks in Vietnam for an epic vacation. We travel together once a year and every time we meet new people they always ask if we are sisters. She immediately launches into her usual answer, “No! We went to college together 30 years ago. Now we live on opposite coasts (NJ and CA) so we meet once a year to travel somewhere new.” And every time she finishes, I say to her, “Why do you always have to say 30 years? They don’t all need to know how old we are!” But it’s all true. Together we have visited Vietnam, Antigua, Panama, Namibia, Grenada, Turks and Caicos, Austin, TX, and Montana and Wyoming. This trip marked my 25th country, and the “been” app tells me I have visited 12% of the world so far.

My friend and I travel well together because we both love to read and learn. We can spend hours side-by-side in a pool reading on our kindles without saying a word, and we can also fill an entire road trip with a fun playlist, insane childish snacks, and silly stories. Because we usually only see each other once a year, we also catch up on our lives, our families and friends, and the stories we’ve shared over the years. We picked Vietnam because we both read and loved The Women and knew we wanted to visit that beautiful country. We also love to visit UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and we checked 4 off on this trip. My UNESCO app tells me I’ve visited 55 World Heritage sites, or 4.4%, so far.

Ha Long Bay

Traveling opens my eyes to new experiences, to different lifestyles, new food, new culture, and all sorts of people. Everyone I met in Vietnam was incredibly kind. Despite trying to learning Vietnamese on Duolingo for about 140 days before this trip, I only successfully mastered about two phrases. Everyone we interacted with either new English better than I knew Vietnamese, or knew how to use Google translate quickly and easily. People did appreciate my language attempts and were so nice and helpful.

When I am on vacation, I am more willing to try new things (see my using chopsticks and eating new foods above!) and open to experiences that are not part of my daily life at home. It is these experiences that help provide an open window view that helps me eliminate biases and be more open-minded to differences. Knowing how divided our country is, I wish that everyone could have these experiences. Reading provides these windows as well, but in-person travel makes such a difference in the learning.

Whether it is discovering a new market, seeing what the locals create and produce on sale, or having silk pajamas made in the cute town of Hoi An, every new site in Vietnam was a delight! Despite the insane summer heat, and the fact that we wore and carried fans around all the time, our vacation was an incredible adventure! I truly wish more open window experiences for everyone!

Previous travel experiences:

• Namibia
• Introverted Adventurer
• Hiking
• Skydiving