For me, 2019 became a year of globe-trotting and exploration, coupled naturally with a healthy dose of jetlag. In the past months, I have been fortunate enough to travel extensively for work and also in my personal life. I have probably spent a good quarter of the year away from home and exhausted the movie offerings on long-haul flights. As we count down to the new year, here are the top five places I have visited. Favorites, as we all know, are hard to pick so I will be presenting my travel highlights in chronological order.
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I am incredibly blessed to travel for work and experience new places. This summer, my job took me to Chicago, Illinois. Determined to make the most of this opportunity, I decided to fly into the Windy City (fun fact: Chicago does not even make the top ten in The Weather Channel’s list of the windiest cities in the United States) early to do some sightseeing on my own. Here is a look at my fantastic weekend! A Bit of ExpositionDespite my well-versed repertoire of domestic travel, I had never been to Chicago. Being the snooty New Yorker that I am, I had always considered New York City THE city, far superior to any other in America. Thus, while Chicago was on my bucket list, visiting was never a priority.
Every summer my family and I head off on a quest to embark on exciting adventures, find new experiences, and make timeless memories. This year, we visited Iceland, an untouched, raw beauty shaped by Mother Nature and Nordic culture. Take a look at our journey to the land of fire and ice!
After a long semester staring at nothing but textbooks, it is nice to look at something more scenic. By no means does this imply that Williamstown is not idyllic or picturesque because it is. However, when the purple mountains can only remind you of school and school can only mean stress, it is kind of hard to just enjoy the view.
Hence, I kicked off my summer this year with a week exploring the great wilderness of Northern California and Oregon. Mother Nature does provide the perfect retreat. How can you not be inspired by her fantastic mountain ranges, towering trees, rushing rivers, and rolling hills? I had the choice of going to San Diego. My parents even tried to entice me with a day trip to Disneyland. As much as I love Disney (I could honestly live there), the idea of crowds and people seemed a bit sickening. After all, when you live in the Big Apple, there is no need to go searching for city life because whatever you find (at least in America) will seem to be a sad comparison to what you have at home. When my family goes on vacation in the summer, there is a checklist of criteria that our destination must meet. First and foremost, our trip needs to be inexpensive. With my college education making a huge dent in my family’s finances and the future cost of law school just around the corner, it is not wise for us to invest in a luxurious cruise or an extended getaway overseas. Still, we always ensure that wherever we go is interesting, exciting, and new. That brings me to our second requirement: cost-effectiveness. Finally, our last prerequisite, which is mostly for my mother, is that we do not go anywhere hot. Yes, that implies that the discounted Bahamas and Disney World vacation is completely out. In the past, my family and I have gotten by with road trips at some of America’s national parks. However, years of trekking from Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon to Yosemite have greatly diminished our options when it comes to fresh, novel natural playgrounds. Thus, this year, we ventured across the border into the unknown of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Very few people, especially Americans, ever wander up north to these two coastal gems of our upstairs neighbor. It is quite a long way from New York and frankly, does not have any super name worthy attractions. When people think of London they think of the Big Ben; Paris, the Eiffel Tour; California, Hollywood; Nova Scotia…um, where is that? However, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick do not need world renown in order to capture your attention. Perhaps, it was my family’s positive attitude towards exploration and adventure. These two lands less traveled inspired and wowed us beyond our wildest expectations. As a sophomore in college, my parents have visited me numerous times. Because it is roughly a four-hour drive from the city to Williamstown, their visits are almost always short and unsatisfying. Given the amount of schoolwork I have most weekends, it is often hard to fit in time to spend with my family when they do come to visit. Too many times have I “kicked” my parents out so that I could study for an exam, write an essay, or go to a capella practice. For the most part, my parents have been as chill as cucumbers when it comes to giving me my space while I’m in school, even when they are up to visit. However, they do complain that there is “not much to do” in the Berkshires. This should’ve been expected, really, considering Williamstown isn’t New York City when it comes to being touristy.
Still, surprisingly, Williamstown and the surrounding area offer plenty of interesting sights and activities to take in. Here are a few suggestions if you happen to find yourself in northern Massachusetts. My absence from this blog has been due to a family vacation to Colorado. Big city girl meets….well, maybe a bit more middle of nowhere than the Berkshires! Every summer since the beginning of high school, my parents and I have been exploring the United States and all of it’s remarkable sights and beauty. We have road-tripped through numerous national parks, forests, and monuments and have gotten a taste of all that lies beyond the Big Apple. Our summer ritual started off with my desire to finally get off of my butt and travel. As a young child, I HATED traveling. A few hours in the car was enough to put me in throes and fits of screaming and hysteria. Okay, it wasn’t really that bad, but it was a constant struggle to keep me in my car seat for over an hour. Even on shorter rides, the infamous “are we there yet” would escape my lips a frustrating number of times. By the time, I was fourteen, I was still a homebody, but I had outgrown my “let’s-never-leave-the-house” phase. Like Rapunzel escaping her tower in Tangled, I was so excited to see the world for the first time! Because Europe was just too expensive, my family opted for a series of North American vacations. |
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