Chapter 1: Planting the Seeds
Looking back, my early childhood travels were more like accidental foreshadowing for the wanderlust that would consume me as an adult. At the time, I was too young and oblivious to truly appreciate those first glimpses beyond my Ohio homestead. But the seeds of adventure were quietly taking root, awaiting their chance to blossom with fridge magnets and passport stamps.
My first real travel memories started with trips taken with my mom and older sister, who is four years older than me. One of the earliest was a trip to Las Vegas when I was around 8 or 9 years old. The MGM Grand's grand entrance, designed to look like the Emerald City from The Wizard of Oz, left an indelible impression. I also vividly recall the knights in full armor roaming Excalibur hotel — especially the one who playfully flirted with my newly-single mom while I got a chance to wield his zweihander sword, lifting it like an inebriated St. Michael.
That first Vegas experience established what would become a running travel tradition — my teenage sister inevitably retreating to the hotel room halfway through the day, feigning illness to get some precious alone time. Sure enough, after mom and I spent hours exploring the deceptively massive Strip, we'd return to find my sister had ordered a lavish room service feast to sustain her "recovery."
My sister's antisocial antics became an inside joke, despite all three of us being quite introverted at heart. We simply loved experiencing new places together within our comfortable familial bubble. Like my sister snapping cringeworthy booby-sculpture selfies or us gawking at Caesar's Palace's replica statuary — little realizing we'd one day walk among the ancient originals.
International Adventures Begin
My first international travel was a weekend trip with just my mom to Toronto to watch a baseball game and visit Niagara Falls. Being so young, I don't recall much about the Falls themselves beyond being awestruck by their sheer enormity. More vivid memories are the inexplicable whirlwind that seemed to blast our domed baseball stadium with tornadic force, and seeing my first live musical — Phantom of the Opera. Mom always said I was mesmerized the entire show, kicking off my lifelong love of musicals.
The next few years brought some additional trips back to Vegas each summer as my dad had relocated there. These were my young "punk" years, where I fondly remember whiling away those scorching months at the local skatepark down the street from my dad's place, playing video games, and just being a typical teen while Dad was at work.
The Cross-Country Journey
When I was 13, my mom offered to let me bring a friend along on an epic cross-country road trip, and to my surprise she begrudgingly approved when I asked if my girlfriend at the time could join. In hindsight, I realize my mom only agreed because she assumed the girlfriend's parents would flatly veto such a request.
We set out on that journey in a brand new minivan my mom had purchased, complete with a rear entertainment system that seems quaint now but was the pinnacle of teen road trip distractions in the 90s. Despite those salacious temptations, I still have incredible memories from that trek like the night we drove late into the Midwest darkness and pulled off into what seemed like a remote ghost town to camp in the van. I vividly recall creeping out for a midnight bathroom break only to freeze when I heard approaching footsteps, envisioning every horror movie slasher. It turned out to just be a curious stray dog doing its rounds.
There were plenty of simple yet lasting lessons too, like when my mom insisted those towering plant sculptures were cacti rather than trees — a fact I learned through cactus-to-palm experience. Or the patches of summer snow along Colorado's high mountain passes that I indignantly refused to believe were really snow until I scooped up some ice-cold evidence. I also have vivid memories of seeing my first jackalope taxidermy and insisting to my mom's amusement that such antlered rabbits must be real.
My favorite stop was an impossibly quaint mountain village that seemed straight out of a picture-book fantasia. It was there that I first got to try skateboarding after the local skaters let me cruise around their park for a bit. From that moment, I begged for my own board the second we were back in Ohio, which ultimately led to the end of that relationship when my girlfriend issued the dreaded "me or the skateboard?" ultimatum.
The Seeds Take Root
Those embryonic childhood travels were hardly expeditions. But they laid fertile ground for the full-fledged obsession to follow by expanding my horizons and awakening my innate sense of wanderlust. Mom didn't just encourage my curiosity about the world — she actively cultivated it through adventures where my adolescent interests were welcomed and accommodated. Those early seeds would flourish into a travel-frenzied adulthood where virtually every stamp in my passport holds an insightful tale seasoned by initial naiveties.
