Where it all began
One could say I inherited my love of travel honestly. I come from multiple generations of adventurers. From my grandmother, who well into her 70s was taking tours to all different kinds of places solo, to my parents who spent 5 months exploring (and eventually getting married in) the South Pacific in the 80s. Fun fact, that is actually where my name, Kia, comes from – the Cook Island Maori greeting “Kia Orana”.
On the off years when we weren’t visiting family back in Virginia we explored the US – from Yosemite to the Everglades. I was fortunate to see much of this grand and diverse nation all throughout my childhood. Then at 13 I got the chance to visit Australia and New Zealand as part of the People to People Student Ambassador Program. That’s really where the obsession kicked into gear. After that, I knew I had to see more of the world, and as wonderful as US road trips were and are, they just weren’t going to be enough.
When it escalated
So, I started to plan. Planning mostly consisted of watching Rick Steves and Samantha Brown specials all through grade school, which meant of course Europe would eventually be my first stop as an “adult”. And my opportunity came right after graduation.
A few high school teachers in my home town would combine forces to chaperone a yearly trip to Europe for any juniors and seniors interested and able. So, come June 2005 I was off on a three week adventure to Italy and Austria with a bunch of 17 and 18 year old Arizonans. Yes, it was just as messy as you would expect. I have some amazing memories from that trip that I will always cherish and most were not necessarily related to art and history let me tell you.
But what was so interesting about this trip for me was that while I was the most excited to see Italy going into it, Austria and Munich are what won my heart. Don’t get me wrong, Italy is beautiful with such rich culture and food and history. But, we can’t help what we do and don’t connect to and for me it wasn’t Rome or Venice, it was Innsbruck and Bavaria. I knew I wanted to go back and spend more time there, so I decided I was going to do a summer abroad in Germany. Then, the summer between Sophomore and Junior year of college I found myself in Stuttgart, Germany. More amazing memories, which I may share a few of here one of these days. It was towards the end of that summer of 2007 that I realized I still wasn’t satisfied and there were just too many other places to visit. And as I have done before I swore I would return, this time as a solo traveler, visiting as many places as possible.
How it got out of hand
True to my word, I graduated college and not too long after in 2010 I found myself in Europe for 4 months. Doing the classic young backpacker thing of a new city every few days, staying in some great hostels, some not so great hostels, and having an absolute blast. And while I was bouncing around I kept meeting people who were telling me I needed to visit Asia. Well, you can guess what happened next.
That’s right, I returned home, saved up money for the next year and a half and did it all over again. Only this time it was 6 months in Asia and I managed to convince a friend I had made early on in my European Extravaganza to quit her job and join me. Yay! I did manage to keep a blog on a third party website throughout both these major trips, and many of those posts I will share here because they are just too good not to. Well, at least from what I can recall, it has been a few years…
And this brings me to now. I realize that’s quite a jump, from Asia in 2012 to here in 2024. There were certainly many 1-2 week trips along the way, as much as PTO and corporate America would allow. So why start this blog now? Well, I knew after my last big adventure that I wanted to do another long trip, this time for at least a year and around the world. However, as so often happens I got caught up with life, work, career, funding my other addiction Disney, etc. But after the madness of the pandemic started to calm down I took a long hard look at my life, which is a very good life to be sure. But, I made a promise to myself back in 2012 that I would make this happen. And if I’ve shown you nothing else here, it’s that I follow through on my oaths. So here we are. Here I am. Walking away from a great job with great people. It was not an easy decision, but as the legend Lucille Ball once said “I rather regret the things I’ve done, than regret the things I haven’t done”.
