I’ve never celebrated my “travel-versary” the way some travelers and travel writers have, and it seems strange to start celebrating it when I’ve moved back home after being overseas.
Yet still, there is no better time than now to start honoring the life I have lived for so long and the life that has made me the person I am today. I’ve decided to round up my favorite memories not just from the past four years but the past seven years, from the day I first started traveling back when I was just 19 years old.
I find myself living in a day dream lately, which has inspired an article that you’ll hopefully see published soon. My travel memories are ones that transport me to another life all together and serve me differently than any other memories I hold close to my heart. My travel memories are moments that almost feel like they never even happened, because they slip so far under the radar when the daily grind starts to crush you to bits and pieces.
Some memories made my list because they were moments of the carefree side of travel, some because of the people I was with, some because of the place I was and some for reasons I can’t really explain.
31. That time I spent the week of my Easter holiday cruising around on a Vespa through the Greek Island of Mykonos with some Greek guy I had just met and that I was certain I was going to marry (that lasted all but eight days).
30. The night before I flew home to Brooklyn after living in Beijing, China, when I spent hours on end in the sticky, summer heat of the city learning how to waltz until nearly 1 a.m. from a group of elderly locals who were politely (re: I felt like they were screaming at me) giving me instructions in Chinese.
29. When I did the Nevis bungy jump in New Zealand with my Aussie friend Nick to celebrate my 27th birthday.
28. Seeing Jamie’s face at the airport in Sydney after nearly two years of not seeing any of my friends or family.
27. The first time I saw a sea turtle when I was scuba diving in Pulau Weh, Indonesia.
26. When my roommate and I sat in a piazza in Florence, Italy, just near the San Lorenzo market taking bites out of a colossal ball of mozzarella we had just bought and people-watched our afternoon away.
25. Driving down the deserted roads of the Australian Outback and watching as a group of young aboriginal kids ran over to the roadside to watch us pass.
24. The time my friend and I were stuck in a train station the middle of no where in China without any money after putting every last yuan we had toward our train ticket. We were stuck in the station for 27 hours and then boarded a two-day train ride across the country and drugged ourselves wit Tylenol PM to make it through the hunger and thirst until we reached an ATM.
23. Celebrating my 26th birthday a little early (re: one month early) on Valentine’s Day in 2013 by climbing the Sydney Harbor Bridge for my birthday with Laura and Connie.
22. Scuba diving with manta rays in Indonesia whilst doing a liveaboard through Komodo National Park with Roberto.
21. Partying through the night at the Full Moon Party in Thailand and making it to see the sunrise and seeing like beach look like a warzone of passed-out travelers.
20. Randomly stumbling across some international DJ festival at a park in Budapest and dancing all night with some guy wearing a leopard speedo.
19. That time I thought I was scammed in Shanghai, China, when some grandfather left me with his barely 1-year-old grandson in the park for nearly two hours as night fell while he went out to buy himself a lifetime supply of cigarettes. I’ll never forget when I called my dad saying something along the lines of, “Dad, I have a baby, and I am in China. What do I do?”
18. When my co-worker in Korea told me that he had seen the Northern Lights from a fishing boat in Mexico.
17. When the hostel worker in Bangkok came over to me in pure silence as I was rubbing my skin raw trying to get the paint off it from nights of partying on the Thai islands, and she sat beside me and help me rub it off.
16. When I was on a rooftop at a family guesthouse in China and a snake farmer showed up with three live snakes in a bag, which he then sliced their heads off, drained their blood into glasses for me and a few other travelers to drink.
15. Seeing dolphins and a killer whale in Port Arthur, Tasmania.
14. Watching the sunset light the sky on fire as it turned to dusk in the Outback.
13. That time Molly bought an Arabian-nights style sword to keep us safe in our travels through India and Nepal instead of the pocket knife I thought we agreed upon.
12. When I had to eat still-live-and-moving squid in Korea in front of all my co-workers, and the squid then suction itself to the inside of my mouth.
11. Seeing my first shooting star fall dart out over the Himalayas in Nepal.
10. Sitting at a remote temple in Angkor Wat with Molly, Carel and Laura, taking in the silence, watching the sunset and looking at the wild horses (re: cows) off in the distance.
9. Running through flooded streets of Cambodia in a downpour to find a bar where I could watch my brother Michael’s rugby game against Australia in the 2011 World Cup.
8. Moving into Little Mount in Pyrmont during my final five months in Sydney. If only those walls could talk.
7. That time in India when a local Indian woman on the train told me I looked just like her daughter, and then she took out a photo of her daughter to “prove” it. The only thing remotely similar was our frizzy hair.
6. Watching Michael score his first World Cup try against Russia whilst sitting in some little random bar in Laos with my friend Jim.
5. Surprising my best friends in the Hamptons when I flew home for the States for Michael’s wedding in 2011.
4. The night that our bus broke down in God’s Country, Cambodia and we slept on the side of the road only to wake up the next morning in a picturesque little village.
3. That time Molly and I got on the wrong train in India, and a fight of head bobbles and Hindi broke out as we tried our best to figure out where to go.
2. How scared I was every night on the boat sailing from Lombok to Flores in Indonesia because I was nearly 100 percent certain our boat was going to tip over or get shipwrecked.
1. Flying home to the States to meet my niece Evangeline when she was born.
