Nicole's Travel Memoir

    It doesn’t matter where you go, but when you board that plane you’ll get an anxious feeling in your gut. I believe that’s our inner wanderlust, anticipating your amazing experiences to come. Traveling is the best form of education. Being fully immersed into a new place, with new people and new cultures forces you to step outside of your comfort zone and push your personal boundaries. Under no circumstances will you regret the amazing architecture you’ll witness, or the eclectic people you’ll meet or the tantalizing food you’ll eat.

    I would say at the age of twenty one I’m an avid traveler. I experienced my first travel experience when I was six months old. I have the pictures of me bundled up like a marshmallow playing in the snow with my family up in Utah. Since then my family and I take an average of three trips every year. Caution, this may be expensive, but know that my parents never spoiled my siblings and I throughout our childhood. I didn’t get a phone until I was a freshman in high school, and I didn’t have texting until I began to pay for it myself in senior year (just to put that into perspective). My parents are frugal in life but when it comes to traveling they go HAM! I am so grateful that they chose to spoil me with trips instead of fancy things, because materialistic things fade, but memories made through traveling last forever.

As for travel experiences:

     One time my whole family; aunty, uncles, and cousins, all decided to take a trip to Whistler, Canada. We went for spring break and it was amazing. I love spending time with my family any chance I get. We went skiing and bobsledding and ice skating; it was an amazing trip.

    Another time my whole family; (same group) aunty, uncles, and cousins, decided to take a trip to the Volcano National Park in Hilo, Hawaii. We island hopped to the Big Island and spent a week exploring the national park, visiting the zoo, playing at the beaches and bowling a lot (they had a really cool bowling alley).

    The first time I traveled alone was the most terrifying experience of my life. I had never experienced boarding a plane without my family or a friend along with me; I was horrified. But once I landed in Rome and met the group of twenty strangers I was going to be spending the next two weeks with; I immediately became optimistic and excited to start the adventure. That trip was mind-blowing for three different reasons; I met twenty amazing people that I still stay in close contact with, I have never seen so many beautiful things in my life, and the food was marvelous! In the span of two weeks we traveled from Milan, to Venice, to Florence, to Siena, to Assisi, to Sorrento, to Capri, to Naples, to Pompeii, and finishing off in Rome. I got about an average of three hours of sleep per day, and ate an average of three gelato a day; I didn’t even gain weight!

    I was bit by the travel bug ever since I was little. Now that I’m an adult I have these amazing dreams about traveling the world to see everything and anything. All you really need to do is save the money and find a partner whom you trust and love, and that’s all there really is to traveling. I have some amazing trips planned for this year and I can’t wait to share all the memories and experiences.

   “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain 

Written by Travel Photographer: Nicole Davis.
For more Amazing Photos of her adventures follow Nicole @niccoolleeyy



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