It's no secret to anyone that knows me that I absolutely love traveling. Growing up I traveled here and there, my family going on trips for summer vacation once in a while. I never considered myself a "traveler" until recently. I made it a point last year to take advantage of any opportunity to travel. There is just so much to see and experience, I have little excuse not to. Talking to friends and acquaintances, a common complaint was, "I would love to travel, but I just don't have the time or money." I subscribed to this train of thought for a while, but after dating someone long distance, I found how simple and affordable it can be to drive or fly somewhere. Since then I've gone more places in a single year than I had for the first couple decades of my life. In 2010, I visited Chicago, California (Palm Springs, Coachella), Washington DC (twice), Seattle, and Deal's Gap. Of course I had some one off trips to Columbia and KC, but those don't count. So far in 2011, I've visited Colorado (just got back a couple days ago) and plan to visit Seattle, Las Vegas, New York, Deal's Gap, and Florida.

In 2012, I plan to travel the world. It's probably the biggest decision I have made up to this point in my life. It's something I've always wanted to do, but figured it was near impossible. The more reading and living I do, I've realized it's definitely within reach, and there's no better time in my life to do it. The plan is to spend 2011 putting myself in a position to do this, and of course, doing a substantial amount of planning. Finding the places I want to go, figuring out how to get to these places, where to stay, how much money I will need, etc. That's the goal. I plan to update every so often with new developments, new ideas and such. I hope to spend that year traveling and blogging about it. It's just a matter of turning my dream into reality.

I'm also telling as many people as possible to make sure that in a situation where I don't spend 2012 traveling, my friends and family will make me feel awful about it. Thanks in advance.