You know how you never fully process your travel until you are home for a few days? I’ve been home from Thailand for a week and I miss it a ton. Definitely one of the best trips of my life. (Despite the bed bugs and western stomach issues). This has me thinking about what ARE the best trips of my life so far? In no particular order:
1. Driving cross country from Delaware to LA and back with my family in a 1979 Pace Arrow RV. This is the trip that inspired my love of travel. We experienced America on this trip - Mount Rushmore, Sturgis, Wall Drug, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, Las Vegas, Hollywood. I remember it was very important I swam in the Pacific Ocean because I had never done it before. The water was surprisingly cold in August in Huntington Beach, CA. Our windshield wipers stopped working during a severe thunderstorm in South Dakota and our air conditioning quit in Oklahoma City in 114 degree heat. I hated my brother so much I wanted to buy my own plane ticket home.
2. Australia. This trip proved to me that if I could reasonably survive a 16 hour flight to the other side of the world, I could do anything. Hugged a koala, dove the Great Barrier Reef, went to Australia Zoo, saw Sydney Opera House, swam at Bondi Beach. Sadly, the toilets did not flush the opposite way.
3. Las Vegas for my 21st bday. First real trip I saved up and paid for with my own money. Ever since I visited Vegas when I was 16, I said I would go back when I turned 21 and I made it happen. I played roulette with a rock star, his wife, and a DJ. I drank way too many frozen drinks. I rode the Big Shot.
4. Europe for the first time. Meeting Alex in the airport in Frankfurt was anticlimactic, but the following week of traveling around Amsterdam and Brussels was amazing. Europe was everything I expected from the movies. It was gorgeous and exotic.
5. London 2009. Random trips are often the most fun and this was the case here. Ceara wanted to see Chelsea play and I had never been to London so off we went. Once there we stumbled upon the Notting Hill Carnival which is the best street fair I’ve ever been to in my life. Never ending parade of Caribbean dancers in excellent costumes and sound systems on every corner blaring all kinds of dance music. People dancing in the street all over the place. Yeah, the soccer game was fun too if only for the Brits in front of us overreacting to every play.
6. Rehoboth Beach, Dewey Beach, Bethany Beach, and Ocean City every summer of my childhood. I remember counting down the days until our annual family beach trip. That was the highlight of my year as a kid. The beach, the boardwalk, and most importantly, the rides. There was magic about the beach. Grotto pizza, Candy Kitchen fudge, climbing to the top of the Lighthouse in Dewey, playing air hockey in the arcade in Bethany, tying a piece of string to a chicken leg and catching crabs from the dock, burying my brother up to his neck in sand. I still get a nostalgic feeling every time I’m down the beach and smell the salt air or hear the waves crashing.
