Vacations/Travel Experiences

[Kestrel she/her]

I didn't see a thread like this on first look, so if there is I apologize.

In any case, what are some of your interesting travel experiences? The good, the bad, I want to hear where you all have been!

My family travels a lot, mostly to places we've already been. We actually own a cabin in the Smokey Mountains, and go there twice or three times a year to do maintenance (it is a rental property, so it also pays for itself!). I'm an avid whitewater rafter, so every time I go there I always look to hit the river at least three or four times. We hike and also go lake kayaking; its quite beautiful up there, especially in the summer.

Other than that, we try to do one big trip a year, but it doesn't always work, but hey, we try. I've been to Disney World twice but its not on my wishlist to go back.

When I was going into seventh grade, we went to Cozumel, Mexico, and that was pretty fun. It was an island off the mainland, but was really commercialized and catered to tourists, so a lot of the original culture was lost.

Another fun trip we took was a trip to Colorado, and let me tell you about that. About two days before the trip, Dad announces that we're going to Colorado, with no plan, no rental car, no hotels, nothing. So we all pile in our little four seater plane and go. We had some fun times there, like the Royal Gorge and the zoo, but the best part was this little wolf center we stopped at. Now, seventh/eighth grade Lark was still in her wolf phase, so this was all I wanted to do. We decide to go find it. After driving for an hour off the grid into the middle of nowhere, we finally see a sign for the place, Mission:Wolf (its in Westcliffe for any interested party out there). We drive up, and the sight that greats us was disturbing, to say the least. Right in the front enterence is a hanging horse carcass, with several volunteers cutting it up to feed the wolves. After giving us the tour and telling us about the wolves, they hand all of us a knife and say "get to work!" So we spent the afternoon cutting up horse. Interesting thing about the horses they use, though. People will call them when they think their animal needs to be put down, and they will come and get the horse. Because euthanizing an animal that large will pollute the environment, the owners opt to let the center handle it and feed it to their animals. However, the center decides if the horse really needs to be put down. In fact, they had three horses on property, all happy and healthy despite the fact the owner deamed them "on death's doorstep."

In any case, after we did that, the center head comes out and asks if we want to come meet the wolves. And that is how I, a wolf obsessed middle schooler, got to enter a wolf enclosure and interact with them. Now that, that was so amazing. Probably not something I'd do now, seeing as I'm more educated on the safety hazards it poses, but it was still very awesome.

That remains to be one of my best memories.

And then there was.. the freshman band trip. Oh, lord, where do I start. Long story short, we flooded the dishwasher, burned rice, and did some things that we probably should not have done. But that wasn't the worst group, one of the boys condos bought four crawfish, kept them in the sink, then cooked them and ate them. That was a weird trip.

Our family tends to enjoy taking trips to the Caribbean, and last summer I found myself in San Pedro, Belize. It was so cool, so much better than Cozumel. The culture was still alive there, and it was an honor to be able to visit. The food was fantastic everywhere we went, and the sealife was incredible to watch. Did you guys know that nurse sharks are like cats? They come up to you and roll over, wanting a bellyrub! The stingrays come so close, its kinda scary but you know that if you leave them be, they won't hurt you.

We also went to the Belize Zoo, on the mainland. That was awesome, not at all like an American zoo. The only thing between you and a jaguar was a chainlink fence. They were more of a sanctuary, only having animals that were native to the country and only taking ones that couldn't be released any longer. Really cool place.

So, what are your stories?

[Kaymyth she/her]

We went to Colorado last summer.  It was my husband's 40th birthday, and he wanted to hike up a 14,000-foot mountain.  Now, asthma and altitude don't mix so well, so I stayed behind in Breckenridge.  (Guess which one of us got altitude sickness?  Yeah.  Me.  )

 

But one of the most memorable moments of the trip was just outside of Denver.  There we were, tooling along I-70 in my adorable little Honda Fit, when suddenly...there was a moose.  A huge cow moose, just trotting in the middle of the interstate.  So Husband is driving, and I'm all, "Ahh!  Moose!"  And he's busy focusing on not hitting the rustbegotten thing, because if you hit a moose in subcompact at highway speeds, you get a moose with four broken legs and a 600-pound animal in your windshield squishing both you and the car to death.

 

So we dodge past the moose.

 

And then the silly thing turns around and tries to run us down.

 

Moose are insane.

[Briar King]

We don't do much traveling out of Louisiana unless we are dodging a hurricane then we go north to Arkansas. We went to Florida twice in the 90's to go to Disney world. We stayed at our aunts house in Melbourne and were at Coco Beach everyday to surf in the Atlantic. Now that was fun and there was a kickass surf store called Ron Jons Surf Shop that's built like a castle and it was awesome. I've been to Nashville TN and Bowling Green KY in our Corvette about 4 times. Every Vette is made in KY and the Vette Museum is there. Our Vette group in the 90's-00's stayed at hotel on the side of museum and it was always a week long party.

[Surgebound Rainspren he/him]

Here in Australia going camping is a common choice for a family holiday, though my families experiences camping have been anything but relaxing.  

 

My family immigrated from New Zealand when I was very young. the year I turned seven we decided heading up into the bush for some camping would be a good first aussie holiday. Unfortunately we ended up being evacuated in the middle of the night because of bush fires.

So we had a bad run of luck, probably a fluke right? A couple years later we decided to go with another family and camp by the sea at the great ocean road. We arrived to find that the river beside our campsite had severely flooded and cut off most of the roads. Luckily we knew the owner of a dairy farm a couple of kilometers away. He agreed to let us stay at the bush at the back of his property. Things tripped at the first hurdle when one of our friends broke both her arms. The next few days went well until a monster of a storm rolled in, shredding our tent and flooding our campsite. We were (once again) evacuated to the farmers homestead and left the next day. Even our leaving was unsuccessful as the roads where still severely flooded and we got bogged a couple times.

 

So we thought camping is off the table how about a nice relaxing tropical holiday, well we decided to spend the week on a island. Well that ended with my sister becoming the first person ever to stand on a stone-fish on that island and we spent 50+ hours in the hospital. 

 

We have some bad luck!

[little wilson she/her]

Vacations! Now this is a topic I adore.

 

I traveled a fair amount when I was younger. My parents wanted us to see as much as we could, but with six kids, it kind of limits the travel options. We typically did a "big" trip every two or three years, with the off year(s) as a camping trip at Alturas Lake in the Sawtooth Wilderness in Idaho. Those were fun. I love camping. There's just something about being in the wilderness, keeping warm through a fire (and I've learned it's very relaxing to just stare mindlessly into a camp fire), and just all around not caring about your hygiene. So your face is dirty and your hair is greasy because you've been sleeping in a tent on hard ground away from facilities for 4 days straight. Oh well. Everyone else you're with is in the same boat. That kind of camping is ridden with no judgement. It's fantastic.

 

I've been Disneyland twice, once when I was 7-8 and once when I was 16. I wouldn't mind going back, but I'd probably throw in Magic Mountain and Knotsberry Farm to make things more interesting and amusement park-centered.

 

One of my first cool experiences on vacation was at Yellowstone. I think I was 11. This herd of buffalo came through the campsite, and one of them walked right next to our van. My brother tried to touch it, but my mom stopped him. What makes that experience so cool was that I didn't realize until then just how huge bison are. But seeing them almost right next to you really puts them into perspective. It's fascinating.

 

If you want a bad experience for when I was younger, the worst probably comes from this trip we did to Seattle and British Columbia. While in Victoria, we went to the Butchart Gardens. Shortly after getting there, I got into a fight with my sister, and I think in the process of my mom trying to break it up, we both got ticked at her and for the rest of the time in the gardens, we refused to be in any of the pictures. We both were as far away from the family as we could be and still be in view. I think I mostly was in front and my sister stayed behind. It's almost amusing to look back at those pictures because one of them is clearly supposed to be a family picture, but two of us are missing. Because we were too angry. Oh, puberty, how I don't miss you.

 

Another year, we were in Arizona visiting my brother who was in grad school in Flagstaff. That trip, we went to the Grand Canyon. We only hiked a quarter of a mile down the canyon, but that was far enough. I twisted my ankle. There was a group of foreigners (I think they were French) standing in the middle of the trail talking right at a switchback and while I was dodging around them, I also had to dodge around mule crap, and I misplaced my foot at the trail's edge (this was down in a wooded area on the Bright Angel Trail so nowhere near the edge of the actual canyon). Hiking back out was one of the worst hikes of my life. Still, gorgeous views, and my mom and I took it slow, so whatever.

 

Some of the best trips we've done were, for some reason, to the Oregon Coast. I'm not sure why those are some of the best, but they have been. A couple trips to Seaside, one to Newport Beach, and a family reunion on Cannon Beach. The ocean may be cold there, but it's fun. On one of the Seaside trips, we went up to Astoria to see the Goonies house and ended up seeing the elementary school from Kindergarten Cop as well, by accident. We also went to Haystack Rock (another local landmark in the Goonies). I like the Oregon Coast. Might be because of Camp 18 though. That's a restaurant northwest of Portland. My family stops there whenever travel to the northern Oregon coast. They have cinnamon rolls the sizes of dinner plates. No joke. Their meals are huge. And delicious. I highly recommend it to anyone traveling through there.

 

The quickest trip I've ever been on was to San Francisco in 2010. My aunt is a flight attendant for Southwest Airlines. We flew out from Boise, Idaho on my birthday, and flew back the next day. While in San Francisco, we went to Ghirardelli Square, which was quite awesome for a chocolate fiend like me. We also ate at this delicious little restaurant called Frjtz. They had literally the best fries and dipping sauce I've had in my life. They also had great crepes. The highlight of that trip, however, was that night. We went to Wicked, at the Orpheum Theatre. Somehow, my aunt got us front row tickets. It was amazing. That was the second time I'd seen a musical in its premier city.

 

The first was Phantom of the Opera in London. That happened on my favorite trip thus far. 2009. England, Ireland, Wales, and France. I could go on about this one for a while, because I've got so many memories and experiences from it. Playing the pianoforte in Jane Austen's home. Biking in the rain on the Aran Islands in Ireland and getting literally soaked to the bone (which caused my bronchitis to come back). Walking into the Long Room at Trinity College and smelling this overwhelming and delightfully delicious smell of books. Eating my first Magnum bar in a stairwell at our Dublin hostel because I'd bruised the metatarsal bone in my foot and couldn't go out into the city. Talking to a Londoner in the Bermondsey Tube station for 2 hours one night with a friend. Watching the Eiffel Tower sparkle from the top of the Arc de Triomphe. Being entirely underwhelmed seeing the Mona Lisa (there are much more interesting paintings in the Italian painter's gallery at the Louvre).....as I said, I could go on for a long while. But I think I'll just say that I adore British castles and really just castles in general. I'm also convinced that the best experiences and memories we can create while traveling aren't through constant movement and seeing as much as we can as quickly as possible. The best experiences happen when we slow down and feel. When we connect, either with the place or the people. Those are the memories that really stick.

 

Anyway, travel is sort of in my blood. I can't imagine a life without it. I have this desperate need to see all of the world that I can, and I fully plan on making it happen. I'm thinking my next trip will be Eastern Australia and New Zealand. Ideally, that'll happen next year with one of my friends, but I'm only in the early stages of planning that one, so we'll see. Should be a ton of fun if it actually happens.

[skaa he/him]

There are 7,107 islands in the Philippines, many of which are tourist destinations. Naturally, lots of Filipinos travel for fun every year even without leaving the country.

But not me.

There are three main island groups in the Philippines: Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. The largest island, which is in the Luzon island group, is also called Luzon. It is where you'll find Metro Manila, the capital region of the Philippines and, incidentally, where I live.

The first and only time I left the island of Luzon was during a family trip to the island of Palawan, also in the Luzon island group, when I was 25. That was also the first and only time I've ever been on a plane.

I have never been outside of the Luzon island group.

Yeah, I am an embarrassment to the Filipino people.

Not that I don't travel, mind you. There are lots of beaches in the island of Luzon. I've even been to a few of them. There's also Tagaytay (located near Manila, to the south) and Baguio (far up north), cities that are situated atop high mountains and are great summer destinations for people who need a break from the tropical heat. The Taal volcano near Tagaytay is always a sight to behold, and being among the pine trees and fog of Baguio makes one feel he's in a different country altogether.

I prefer the mountain cities over the beaches, to be honest. In fact, I prefer cities in general. If I ever get the motivation to finally travel outside of the country, I'd rather go to New York or Tokyo than to some ancient ruins, or some rural village of historical significance, or some beach.

Edited April 23, 2015 by skaa

[SmurfAquamarineBodies he/him]

Vacations! Now this is a topic I adore.

 

 

Anyway, travel is sort of in my blood. I can't imagine a life without it. I have this desperate need to see all of the world that I can, and I fully plan on making it happen. I'm thinking my next trip will be Eastern Australia and New Zealand. Ideally, that'll happen next year with one of my friends, but I'm only in the early stages of planning that one, so we'll see. Should be a ton of fun if it actually happens.

 

If you do make it to New Zealand and travel to Christchurch, contact me and we could meet up and do something. Eat most probably. I like eating.

[little wilson she/her]

If you do make it to New Zealand and travel to Christchurch, contact me and we could meet up and do something. Eat most probably. I like eating.

 

That'd be awesome. Christchurch is definitely on the list. I want to go to both islands and right now I've got us flying out of Christchurch back to the States. And eating is good. I like food.

[Titan Arum]

Moose are insane.

Moose are indeed insane! When I was 16 I had a family reunion in the forests of eastern Idaho. After some of my cousins and I blew up the fire pit (lesson: don't put a capped glass bottle filled with water into a fire. It explodes. Not just some minor explosion, but it exploded enough to send logs flying over our heads when we were 10 feet away from the pit), we decided to play flashlight tag at night. We had set up a boundary to make the game slightly easier. I heard a sound just on the other side of the boundary, thinking one of my cousins was being a jerk. I shined my light on...a moose with her calf. I quickly turned around and ran straight back to the cabin, with the loud crashing and cascading sound of a moose chasing me. I was scared beyond belief. While I was running I was screaming to my cousins that I was giving up and going inside because of a moose. None of them really believed me; they thought I was just chasing another cousin and didn't want to pop out of their hiding places so that I could easily catch them instead. Once I got inside, none of the adults believed me because of the earlier fire pit explosion. In the end, the moose redeemed me in everyone's eyes: she was in the cabin's yard with her calf the next morning, contentedly eating the grass. 

 

The quickest trip I've ever been on was to San Francisco in 2010. My aunt is a flight attendant for Southwest Airlines. We flew out from Boise, Idaho on my birthday, and flew back the next day. While in San Francisco, we went to Ghirardelli Square, which was quite awesome for a chocolate fiend like me. We also ate at this delicious little restaurant called Frjtz. They had literally the best fries and dipping sauce I've had in my life. They also had great crepes. The highlight of that trip, however, was that night. We went to Wicked, at the Orpheum Theatre. Somehow, my aunt got us front row tickets. It was amazing. That was the second time I'd seen a musical in its premier city.

You were in San Francisco then when I lived there! Frjtz is on Hayes Street, about half a mile from where I lived. I liked that place. Up the street form it is also an amazing macaroon shop. 

 

This is a great topic, by the way! I have traveled extensively, both domestically (I live in the US) and internationally. I am actually going on a vacation to Turkey at the end of May for two weeks. I am super excited to see Istanbul and the interior! Over the past 10 years I've been to Europe numerous times, spent 6 months in Vietnam, 3 months in Cambodia, 6 months in southern India, 6 months in Ghana, I've taken 3 work trips of 2 weeks each to Jordan (with a fourth up and coming), a 3 week trip to Malawi, and soon to take a 2 week trip to Pakistan. I've done side trips to Togo, Burkina Faso, and Indonesia when I was living in some of those countries on longer stays. 

 

Now, what's the best experience that I've had? I'll list two: one in Vietnam, one a visit to two awesome ancient sites in Cambodia and Jordan. 

 

I spent 6 months in Vietnam volunteering for a microfinance company called Kiva. I didn't get to travel much because of all of the work, but a few times I did. On one occasion, I went to a mountainous region of Vietnam to a town called Sa Pa. This town is famous for the colorful indigenous populations (like the Hmong) and it's tiered rice paddies on the sides of mountains. I went with one of my fellow volunteers for Kiva who worked in Cambodia. We spent several days in Sa Pa, and did two things that were amazing: first we did a two day hike along some treacherous trails through the farms and lands in the mountains and second we rented motorbikes to drive through some of the amazing mountain passes.

Image of some of the farms on the hike (Note: all images in spoiler tags were taken by me):

For the first 10 km of the hike we were being followed by a team of Hmong women who were trying to sell us cheap trinkets. We insisted that we didn't want any of them, but they persisted and persisted. After 10 km, they finally turned back. We were amazed at how long they stayed with us! It was an indicator to us that the mark-up on the items must be huge, otherwise how could it possibly be worth it for them to follow us for hours on end without a sale? If they would've sold just one item, it probably would've been worth it for them. After hiking all day we ended up at a home-stay house for a night and had amazing food for dinner. On our way back into town the next day we found the

Golden Gate Bridge of Sa Pa!

 

The day our hike ended, my friend and I decided to rent motorbikes. Now, neither of us had ever driven a motorbike in our lives. What could go wrong? We spent five hours driving over every type of terrain that you could possible drive across: dirt paths, paved roads, rocks, mud, water. You name, it we drove on it. We were pretty cocky and sure of our skills and on the paved road back into town were taking curves tightly and driving moderately fast. At one point, I took a curve relatively straight and suddenly found myself on the ground sliding across the road with my motorbike on top of me. I slammed into the guardrail (thankfully there was one!) and quickly assessed any damage to myself. Fortunately, my lucky jeans (that had saved me a few months before in San Francisco when some drunk person tried to stab me unsuccessfully on NYE) protected me and all I had as damage was a large bruise on the inside of my leg where the bike fell on me and a bruise on my hip the shape of a Nokia brick. My buddy was driving behind me and saw me crash, so he assumed I had just taken the turn to fast. He slowed down before entering the turn...and promptly slid out as well, breaking his bike and also slamming into the guard rail. He was okay, just like I was, but we were confused how we both crashed in exactly the same way. The culprit: oil on the road. Sigh. 

My buddy before the crash:

 

When I travel, some of my favorite things to see and do are to visit ancient sites. Cambodia and Jordan have two of the coolest sites I've ever seen.

Ankor Wat, Cambodia

I've actually been to Ankor Wat twice: once with the same friend in Vietnam I went to Sa Pa with, and a second time with some of my classmates from my MA program. It's just awe inspiring and makes you think of the majesty of the time period. The Ankor plain is covered in dozens and dozens of temples and ruins. Some of my favorite experiences include seeing one temple, Bayon, with hundreds of faces carved throughout the temple complex, with the rising sun. My friend and I had this temple to ourselves for two hours. My second favorite experience on the Ankor plain was at a temple complex in the jungle. It had just rained, so again the complex was devoid of people, but the heat of the day meant mist was rising up from the temple complex as we explored it. It was creepy, but the peaceful quiet and ominous feel was breathtakingly beautiful. 

 

Petra, Jordan

 

Petra is an amazing city complex of tombs carved into the mountainsides in southern Jordan. It's amazing to know that people carved these gigantic structures directly out of the stone. One of my favorite aspects of this trip included taking a hike out of the valley where all of the tombs were carved. I decided to go off trail, by myself, to reflect on what I'd seen and meditate. In the middle of nowhere, I came across a lone, elderly Bedouin woman selling trinkets with her donkey. I didn't necessarily want any of the items she was selling (mostly bracelets). We didn't share a single word of any language, but somehow we were able to communicate with each other. She knew I didn't want to buy anything, but it seemed she just wanted some company. She pulled out a seat cushion for me, so I sat down with her in silence. She then started building a fire, and put a tea kettle over the flames. Once the water was boiling, she added sage and tea to the pot and then pulled out two glasses. We sat there in silence drinking tea and eating flat bread with yogurt. I'll never experience anything like this again. Humanity is simply beautiful, everywhere you go. 

Edited April 23, 2015 by Titan Arum

[Kaymyth she/her]

Moose are indeed insane! When I was 16 I had a family reunion in the forests of eastern Idaho. After some of my cousins and I blew up the fire pit (lesson: don't put a capped glass bottle filled with water into a fire. It explodes. Not just some minor explosion, but it exploded enough to send logs flying over our heads when we were 10 feet away from the pit), we decided to play flashlight tag at night. We had set up a boundary to make the game slightly easier. I heard a sound just on the other side of the boundary, thinking one of my cousins was being a jerk. I shined my light on...a moose with her calf. I quickly turned around and ran straight back to the cabin, with the loud crashing and cascading sound of a moose chasing me. I was scared beyond belief. While I was running I was screaming to my cousins that I was giving up and going inside because of a moose. None of them really believed me; they thought I was just chasing another cousin and didn't want to pop out of their hiding places so that I could easily catch them instead. Once I got inside, none of the adults believed me because of the earlier fire pit explosion. In the end, the moose redeemed me in everyone's eyes: she was in the cabin's yard with her calf the next morning, contentedly eating the grass. 

 

Yep.  I believe it.  I mean, if an angry moose will try to attack my TARDISmobile, they certainly won't be intimidated by a 16-year-old kid.  Dangerous beasties, those.

 

Petra, Jordan

 

Petra is an amazing city complex of tombs carved into the mountainsides in southern Jordan. It's amazing to know that people carved these gigantic structures directly out of the stone. One of my favorite aspects of this trip included taking a hike out of the valley where all of the tombs were carved. I decided to go off trail, by myself, to reflect on what I'd seen and meditate. In the middle of nowhere, I came across a lone, elderly Bedouin woman selling trinkets with her donkey. I didn't necessarily want any of the items she was selling (mostly bracelets). We didn't share a single word of any language, but somehow we were able to communicate with each other. She knew I didn't want to buy anything, but it seemed she just wanted some company. She pulled out a seat cushion for me, so I sat down with her in silence. She then started building a fire, and put a tea kettle over the flames. Once the water was boiling, she added sage and tea to the pot and then pulled out two glasses. We sat there in silence drinking tea and eating flat bread with yogurt. I'll never experience anything like this again. Humanity is simply beautiful, everywhere you go. 

 

Wow.  I saw a Nova special on Petra a few weeks back; that place is amazing.

[Unodus he/him]

If this discussion extends to beyond just vacations, then I've got some cool stories to share... :3

My Father is a Diplomat for the English Embassy (Which basically means he approves visas :/), but that also means his job requires him and his family to live in the country he works in (which is called a posting). A posting can go to anywhere in the world, but you don't get to choose where (Well, you get given a list of open positions, and try and apply to them, but its very limited). So, I've lived in a lot of places.

I was born in England, specifically Bristol; but I was raised in Nairobi, in Africa- although I can't remember much of it. I was there for 3 years, before moving to Ireland- where I stayed for another another 2 years. After that, I moved back to England (Bristol again) and stayed there for 3 years. Then my dad got a posting to India, so we moved to New Delhi., and after another 3 years- we moved back to England (This time, in Surrey). Four years later, my dad took another posting- this time to Beijing with just my younger sister and mum, leaving me and my younger brother in England in a boarding school. Its been about a year since then, but every school holiday- either we go to them or we go to them. This posting has about 1 and a half years to go, and then we'll all be back in England again.

The cool thing about being a Diplomat, is that flights are played for you (assuming you take the cheapest option :/) so we've done a lot of traveling over the years. I've been to the Taj Mahal, up Big ben, seen the Harmandir Sahib, trekked paddy fields, been to a ridiculous amount of theme parks, walked to two Olympic stadiums (England & China), visited the WW2 memorials- traveled to New Zealand, Australia, Florida, Goa, Vietnam, California, France, The lake district, and a whole bunch of other places which names I can't quite recall right now :B

Sorry about being brief, its late where I am and I'm too tired to write any more =-=

Edited April 24, 2015 by Unodus

[Kestrel she/her]

Just got back from the band trip, too. To San Antonio. It was fun, for the most part. We went to Seaworld which was garbage though. There were some fun room stories, and some inside jokes formed. Our band director started saying "good gravy" and acted like a class A goof. We also stumbled across another director's social media, and let me say, it was fantastic. "I'm hot like Mexico" was the best of his posts.

One of the guy's rooms was great apparently. One night they said that the pair sharing one bed came up with the "karate chop bed of swaggies" in which they would chant "ching ching ching" randomly in the night and karate chop each other.

One of the guys who's a friend of mine bought a $15 pair of sunglasses on the first day. He didn't take them off. Once. He rode them on every ride, did everything with them. It was great. Also we rode the same ride at Seaworld 20 times together, to the point where we didn't even get off. Because we weren't going to see the Shamu shows. Gross. But anyway, when the car would leave the platform, he'd look right at the employees and say "Got my swag back!" in a really rapper-ish voice. It was quite hilarious.

He walked into ap world today with the glasses, looked at the teacher, and said "got my swag back!"

I think she died.

[-Deleted-]

Lots of awesome trips mentioned. 

 

I extensively planned a year-and-a-half walk through the country. I poured all kinds of research into it and read things from people who did similar, though shorter, trips; I have all of the supplies and even a decent chunk of the money I need. But I quite my job at a Walgreens recently, full of people I genuinely really liked, in order to write a novel that captured my mind so much, I wasn't content with the amount of time I had leftover in the day to write it. So I quit in the effort to write the novel. Whether it gets picked up or not, I'm going on my adventure though. I'll just have to find my way around the money hurdle. 

 

I have other kinds of traveling endeavors that are still in the basic planning stage. one of them is to walk from the southern-most point in South America, to the northern-most point of Canada. A trip spanning the Americas. After that I wanted to travel through Canada for a while, then back into the U.S., then bike around the U.S., find a way to live in each state at least a month. This whole thing is basically a 10-year adventure. Then I plan to travel Europe, and i wanted to sail, but not sure where. 

 

Traveling has always been a part of the plan in my life. I realized a few years ago that this was not the case with everyone. I found this odd; I've lived my entire life just accepting that that was what I was going to do: travel, and write novels, and be involved in as many entertainment mediums as possible. 

 

I told a friend of mine my realization, and he just said, "I thought you knew you were weird." I had no idea that most people don't desire to do these things. I explained to him that I've just lived my life knowing I was going to do these types of things at some point and he said, "I know, you're really weird."

[Kasimir he/him]

Well, I've done my fair share of travelling, but I'm too tired to recall the longer trips like the one to Europe (especially Germany.) So you get the one when I went to Korea in winter 

 

So, first, I'm Asian (from Singapore; i.e. perma-summer and rain). So everywhere I was going, people'd talk to me in Korean and just look really confused when I gave them a blank stare. (I didn't know Korean then and even now, I know very little.) I remember at one point getting frustrated and rambling back in German because I felt the confusion should be shared. But this isn't the bit of the trip I'm talking about.

 

I was travelling with family and some of my younger and older cousins wanted to learn how to ski. So ok, we made our way to a ski resort and signed up for classes, the instructor takes us down a few slopes. I'm a downright klutz; I trip right out of the lift, almost bash someone in the head with the ski pole, and generally look as though it's only a matter of time before I kill myself or the instructor or someone else.

 

So the instructor tells the others to go ahead and heroically perseveres in trying to give me individual instruction because they're all doing ok, I'm not. Let's start from the beginning, he tells me, and points to the slope.

 

Ok, I say. We get on the top of the beginner's slope. I make my way down without incident--and then halfway down the slope, my pants drop off.

 

I kid you not :/ My pants fell. Think I didn't secure them properly or something, and they had been a bit big. Thankfully, I had leggings beneath but that was pretty obvious. So ok, that was Incident #1.

 

Incident #2: I take off slowly, then go faster because whooo! Wind in your face, the speed--it's rather fun, I'm thinking. And then he freaks out. "Slow down!" he keeps telling me. And I cannot for the life of me remember how to slow down.

 

So I start to laugh. Which disturbs him all the more. "Why are you laughing?!" the instructor demands. "This is not funny!"

 

I'm too busy laughing to explain to him several things: 1. It's hysterical laughter, 2. I'm just laughing at the thought, "Oh, chull, I'm going to be the first person to kill themselves on a beginner's slope because they didn't know how to hit the brakes.", 3. It's hysterical because I realise I have absolutely zero idea how to stop/slow down.

 

He hauled me off and I wasn't allowed to ski again for the rest of the day >> I'm just amazed it took him that long to get to that conclusion.

[+Slowswift]

I don't have any stories remotely on par with the rest of these, but I did go to England for two weeks. Basically it was the best thing EHVAR.

 

Hmm... any especially interesting experiences while there? How about almost not fitting in the Underground, playing Harry Potter trivia with some Dutch tourists while standing in line for an hour and a half at King's Cross, watching an actual trebuchet fling an actual flaming ball of stuff while at Warwick Castle, a castle tour...

 

AND CARDIFF FREAKING WALES PEOPLE.