I’ve been writing stuff since I was old enough to hold a crayon. When I was a child, I would staple together sheets of white paper and write and illustrate my own “books”. In 4th grade through middle school, I attended a school for the creative and performing arts, where I was a creative writing major. In high school and college, I branched out and explored other interests, but writing was always a part of me, and I could be found scribbling stories under my sheets at night.
One of the interests I began exploring in college was international travel. My family had always traveled a lot within the US when I was a kid—I’d been to about 25 US states by the time I turned 18—but my dad didn’t even own a passport till he was in his 60s. My grandmother, who became a widow when I was a baby, celebrated her newfound singledom (and the life insurance money) by traveling all over the world in the ‘80s, which I have to think fed my dreams of international travel. (My father and my mother had, however, toured the country hippie-style in a Volkswagen camper van, similar to the one below, in the ’70s. So it is fair to say we are a family of travelers.)
At 19, I finally got my passport and headed to Europe on a university program about ancient civilizations. Over the course of five weeks, students and professors traveled together to Athens, Rome, and Tunis to learn about the civilizations of the Mediterranean from B.C.E. to present. That was my first trip abroad (not counting freshman year Spring Break in Rocky Point, Mexico), and I have not stopped traveling since. I was fortunate to have jobs in my 20s and early 30s that allowed me to travel a lot. Now I rarely travel for work, but I self-fund at least a couple big trips a year. As of summer 2023, I have been to 43 countries on 4 continents and 43 US states (plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico).
I have always lamented that I haven’t done a better job of recording my travels. I posted on Facebook since the era when you had to have a .edu email address to get an account, and really took to posting on Instagram circa 2016. But I still felt guilty—“I’m a writer! I should be writing about all of this!” I said to myself. I have published a few modest poems and works of fiction, but travel writing has always loomed in my mind as an alluring but unexplored territory.
After a trip to Dominica in May (about which posts are coming), I decided that now was the time to start. I enrolled in an online travel writing class at Gotham Writer’s Workshop. I invested in a quality camera (a Canon EOS R10, for photography nerds) and lenses and gear to go with, and I took some photography classes locally (h/t Capitol Photography Center and Washington Photo Safari), and photo editing classes online. I built a website. And here we are.
I am also conscious that I cannot support a travel blog through a few big trips a year alone, but I am fortunate enough to live in one of the largest tourist destination cities in the United States—Washington, DC. (Or rather, I live in Arlington, VA, which is just across the Potomac River from DC.) So, here you will find pieces here about my big, exciting travels (stand by for two series on Dominica and Alaska, and two one-off posts on San Juan, Puerto Rico and Vancouver), but you will also find plenty of posts and photos about DC and its environs—from the major landmarks, to more off-the-beaten track locales, to local restaurants and bars.
It’s going to be fun! I can’t wait to take you traveling with me!