The earth is approximately 57,308,738 square miles. If I were to see 25 different miles everyday for the next 40 years I would have only explored .006% of the world. A statistic that makes it almost impossible for me to sit still as I type this. Students like myself are constantly asked, “What do you want to do when you get older?”, but when there is so much of the world left unexplored, it seems hard to give an answer. I don’t know what I want to do because I don’t know what there is to do. If we’re not careful we may wind up stuck in some college pursuing some job that we don’t want because somewhere along the way we decided to settle. I am not prepared to settle because I know that somewhere out there in that other 99.994% of the world, there is bound to be something I was born to do.
I am fortunate enough to have traveled a fair amount for my age. I have visited both the east and west coast of the United States, Costa Rica, the U.S Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos. Each of these have been their own unique and entertaining experience, but they all have increased my desire to travel around the world. Every trip presents an opportunity to meet new people, taste new foods and see new and exciting places. When you are traveling you can make up your story as you go, you have the means to become another person.
Time after time when talking to people I hear of how they regret not traveling more, how there are a litany of things and places they wish they had seen, but now, for whatever reason, they can’t. I am a procrastinator in all senses of the word, but the one thing I don’t want to put off is traveling. Too often we assume that there will be a time for it, or that the opportunity will present itself but we never take the initiative and just go. I want people to just go. To leave what they have behind and take the next chance they get to see the world. Besides, if each of us just got up and left, what could they do?
