I haven't been everywhere but it's on my list

Travel.
The exhilaration of flying to a different country and speaking a different language and being in a different culture and just having everything be absolutely, utterly, beautifully, magnificently different.
It's something that I've dreamed of since I was a very small girl. I believe the first spark of my imaginations of traveling began when I was about 7 or 8 years old. My dad and one of his best friends went over to Europe during the 80s, and one day this friend of my dad's came over and showed us a slide show of all the pictures they took while they were on their 10 week trip. When I sat down, I was expecting to be very bored (as I expressed later to Mr. Wade, much to his amusement and my mother's chagrin). But once we were done, I was filled with the beautiful, old pictures of a picturesque land, somewhere way across the ocean. As I got older, the idea of travel grew heavier and heavier on my mind. Within the past year, it has definitely been in the top ten things that I think about on a regular basis.
Travel seems to have some sort of a mysterious hold over me. There is something so exorbitantly beautiful about traveling to different places. Honestly, so far I haven't been to that many different places. I've been to Chicago, Washington D.C., Baltimore, Atlanta, Panama City, Annapolis, several different large cities in Virginia, Gatlinburg... but that is about the extent of my traveling experience.
But rest assured, that will change. My dad has always told me to be sure to take some risks in life. Do something daring. Be a little crazy. Don't settle for being your mediocre person. And I don't intend to. My plan at the moment is to finish college and once out of there, immediately go into at least half a year of traveling all over the world to different places that I've always dreamed about going to. Money, you ask? Saving. For years and years. Starting now. Trust me, if I want something, I will stop at absolutely nothing to attain it. When I want something, it's already mine. I'm determined. I'm stubborn. And under no circumstances do I back down.
Also, I'm not your usual "I want to tour the world" type person. In some ways, yes, that's a true statement. But in other ways? All I seek is the simplicity and true nature and culture of the different countries. This one story (of the many, many stories I have been told) my dad told me about his trip to Europe kind of sums up my reason for desiring to go and travel the world. He told me one time, I believe he was in England, possibly Scotland, he got up one morning and just went for a walk. He was out in the middle of no where, with nothing terribly exciting to see. Or so he thought. As he was walking down the simple path out in the simple beauty of Britain, he stopped in his tracks. He looked. Was it really...? On this completely random path, he walked straight up to the worn down remains of a castle. Now I ask you, how often do you go for a random walk on a random path out in the middle of no where and come across a castle? The reason that story really sums up my reasons for traveling is I want to see the heart of a country. The little secrets they hide that really no one knows about except for a few people who live in the area. Of course I want to see the big cities of the countries I visit. They're part of the country. Just like Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco, Atlanta, Boston, and places like that are part of America. But still, I live in a little town that almost nobody would just plan on visiting if they were coming to America. That's the kind of place I want to go to.
I have so many places I want to go to. This is one of the times I'm feeling the use of school work coming into play. Geography has taught me about so many different places that I never would have imagined going to, but now have every intention of going to. I plan to find the most unexpected remains of castles in England, I plan on climbing to the top of the Wudang Mountains, I plan on going to the Atacama desert, I plan on crawling through the wilds of the Amazon River, I plan on going to the picturesque nearly fairy tale-like villages of Austria and Switzerland, I plan on drinking champagne on the London Eye, I plan on walking around Machu Picchu and exploring every rotten cranny of the old beautiful place, I plan on walking the streets of Chicago and New York decked out in the most fabulous and eccentric clothes, I plan on perambulating the Highlands of Scotland, I plan on ascending the wild peaks of the mountains in New Zealand, I plan on seeing the blond headed children of Norway, I plan on viewing all the pyramids of Egypt, I plan on standing on a glacier in Greenland, and I plan on viewing every piece of history, art, and magic that each country holds all to itself.
I suppose you could say I have itchy feet. I sort of do. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love living where I live, and I love home, and I love familiarity. But something in my soul is wild. Untamed. It constantly wants to do something or go somewhere on the spur of the moment and do something completely unexpected. I feel like packing my bags right now, driving up to the nearest air port, and catching a flight to London or perhaps Santiago or Beijing.
Even now, probably three or four years before I'll be able to go to any of these places, I'm already planning out everything. Places to do photography, places to eat, places to hike, places to meet new people, places to do something a little crazy, places to spin in a circle and squeal about the fact that I'm actually in a different country living a life so few people have. Crazy? Maybe a little. Fantastic? Big time.

It is not down in any map; true places never are.
{herman melville}

The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees
what he has come
to see.
{g.k. chesterton}

Once you have traveled, the journey
never ends,
but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers.
The mind can never break off
from the journey.
{pat conroy}

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things
you didn't do than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bowlines,
sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore.
Dream.
Discover.

{mark twain}

(picture credit-Google images)