My maternal grandparents lived near O’Hare airport and to get to their house, we had to drive by O’Hare. That meant we were inundated with billboards for all sorts of new destinations, or places to get away to when the cold and dark of winter had descended on us.
But my grandparents also traveled. While I don’t recall all their trips, I know they went to Europe, to Poland, and Egypt, too. My mom worked for an airline and my dad had lots of photos of him at various foreign places while he was in the Navy.
While it was never explicitly said, travel was about exploring the world, branching out beyond your own border (or bubble, as we might say today).
I have been lucky that life has taken me to so many places, places I wanted to go to (Australia) and those unexpected (Hong Kong, Morocco). And now, Bali.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be chronicling aspects of our trip and what the trip meant to me and what I learned from it. We sort of picked Bali out of the hat, not a place either one of us had thought to go to, but we wanted a place neither of us had gone to before and was different enough that we would be somewhat uncomfortable.
Like Morocco, it wasn’t easy at times for a variety of reasons, but being uncomfortable, being outside one’s own box, is how we grow. I could already sense on the trip my growth and I’m looking forward to sharing more in the weeks to come.