Growing up, I didn’t travel a whole lot.  Up until I was like maybe 11 years old, my entire world revolved around the states of Virginia and Maryland, bouncing around between family visits and, family visits.  Family vacations as I aged were to places like New York, Chicago, and to Niagara Falls, where we barely crossed into Canada for a spell.

Conventions, afforded me opportunities to visit other states, although I didn’t really explore any of them outside of the respective conventions I went to, but for what it was worth, I started visiting places like California, Georgia and the Carolinas.  And when I became my best impression of a functional adult and got super into baseball, the pursuit of baseball parks has given me the best excuse to visit a whole slew of places I never imagined seeing growing up, like Seattle, Portland, Miami, Boston, Minneapolis, Phoenix and San Diego.

However, aside from visits to cities in adjacent countries Canada and Mexico, I’ve never been outside of the United States.  In fact, I’ve never been out of the western hemisphere in my entire life.  For shame, when you consider the fact that I’ve never been back to the Motherland at any point, and it’s still my goal to ultimately take my mother to Korea one of these days.  I never went, or really had the opportunity for any dramatic international travel in my life; I didn’t go backpacking through Europe, nor did I ever have the aforementioned trip back to the Motherland.  And up until I was really an adult, I guess I didn’t have the financial means and/or the drive to pursue it.

Continue reading “The pursuit of exploration” →