# gome — travel

# I’d like to travel more

7 Apr 2023, 10:30 PM

I’ve only traveled outside the US a couple times. Once was to a border town in Mexico while visiting Texas, so it hardly counts. The only other international trip I’ve taken was to Montreal, which was quite a cool experience. But I’ve still never been off the continent.

When I went to college, I thought I might do a study abroad program. But abruptly changing majors halfway through foreclosed that possibility. I took some German classes, so I would have really liked to go somewhere I could practice speaking it.

In my first year of college, I had an opportunity to go on a choir tour in Germany, but I turned it down. I thought it would be too expensive, and I was new so I still didn’t know anyone in choir. Well, that year I ended up making a bunch of friends in choir, and by the time the Germany tour came around, I knew I would have had a ton of fun on it. And if I was motivated to do so, I would have been able to make it work financially. So I wish I had taken the chance when it first came up.

Between then and now, I haven’t really considered traveling that much. For a while, I didn’t have the money for it. I am habitually frugal, so even once I started earning enough money that I could spend some on travel, I didn’t really think too seriously about it.

But I think now is a pretty perfect time for me to start traveling both in and outside the states a little more. Like I said before, I’m in a good financial position to do so. My job is flexible and I don’t have any strong commitments to a particular place that would prevent me from doing so.

Traveling might also be a welcome shift in perspective for me. Like I was talking about yesterday, I love to explore, and I find encountering a brand new place so refreshing and satisfying. Especially in the winter, it’s easy to get stuck in one little loop of life, and I think new experiences are important for breaking up that rigidity. At the stage I’m at in life, I might be the most receptive I’ve ever been to the things unfamiliar places might offer.

Here’s a list of some of the countries I might want to visit eventually, in no particular order:

- Austria—speak German, & the Alps
- Japan—especially Hokkaido
- Georgia—awesome folk music
- Italy—see Rome, eat the food
- Morocco—cool buildings & culture
- Thailand—heard Bangkok is cool
- Iran—has beautiful mountains
- Netherlands—hear they have good urbanism
- Indonesia—Java looks beautiful
- Germany—speak German
- Peru—mountains, Machu Picchu
- China—have a friend from there
- United Kingdom—want to compare culture to US

Have you visited (or are you from) any of these countries? Where have you traveled and how did it go? Would you like to travel more? Let me know your thoughts at my Ctrl-C email: `gome ​@ ​ctrl-c.club`.