Why I Never Traveled Abroad Until 30

I started traveling late in life. At least, compared to the friends and colleagues I was surrounded by in my 20s, I felt very far behind.

Growing up, my family just didn't travel. The idea of going abroad was like a wild fantasy, so unattainable. My parents spoke about it like a far-off dream, something people did if they were either very wealthy or retired. We were, in my memory, squarely middle class, but my parents had other priorities for where they spent their money, which did not include "worldly" experiences.

(There are a lot of reasons I wish travel had been a bigger part of my childhood—even just a little bit—but I do think it's important to clarify that I'm not upset with my parents that it wasn't. Looking back, I'm grateful for everything my parents did for my brother and I while we were growing up. I know that they truly believed they were setting us to have the best lives possible. One could debate all day about what's most important, but it doesn't really matter; the point is simply that travel wasn't a priority for my family.)

All this being said, the "trips" that we did take typically consisted of about an hour's drive to an amusement park of some sort. The furthest we ever drove was about 4 or 5 hours to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. (I was a teenager at the time and really enjoyed that one.) Before college, I had only been on a plane 3 times: Disney World twice (the furthest we'd ever gone), and NYC for a 16th birthday trip with my mom. We never went camping. I had been to two different countries: Canada, because we lived about 40 minutes from the border; and the Bahamas, which was part of our Disney Cruise so, in my opinion, it didn't really count. We never took road trips. At the time I'm writing this, I have still never been to the capitol of my home state.

This wasn't just my immediate family, either. I have a small family, all living in the same area, and except for one aunt+uncle+cousin, none of them had ever traveled anywhere else either. Said aunt+uncle+cousin moved away when I was in elementary school, to a city about a 7-hour drive from us. From the day they moved until a couple years ago (I'm in my 30s now), not one single family member traveled to visit them.

I always found this super bizarre. I hadn't quite formed an opinion on travel yet, but I definitely didn't understand why no one could make the trek for their own family. (Many years later, after I graduated from college and moved with my now-husband, we took a 14-hour road trip to visit said aunt+uncle+cousin, making us the first family members to do it.)

So, all of this amounted to travel feeling very off-limits to me for most of my life. I had been taught that it was expensive, there wasn't time for it, it was confusing, it was uncomfortable, it was unsafe, it was difficult. And most of all, it was a fantasy.

To reiterate what I mentioned above, this isn't bad; it's just the way it was. I reflect on this background information from time to time because I do think it really influenced the person I was in my 20s and a lot of how I saw the world for most of my life (something I hope to explore more as I continue this personal blog).

After the aforementioned NYC trip with my mom, I was obsessed. With NYC. With leaving home. I only applied to colleges in NYC (which, in retrospect, was pretty risky, but it all worked out). I moved to Brooklyn and got my first real taste of the world outside of the bubble my parents had curated for me.

My four years in college were the best years of my life. I gained independence and reality. Living in New York City is an incredibly humbling experience; you are simultaneously surrounded by the wealthiest people living in million dollar condos and the poorest people begging for money on the sidewalks outside them. You realize how much more others have, but you also realize how fortunate you are to have what you have, and you learn how to be grateful.

I met my husband while I was in college. His childhood seemed the polar opposite of mine. His mother loved travel and had done so much of it, and had worked hard to incorporate it into her kids' lives, too. My husband had stood on the equator, been to the Galápagos Islands, Australia, delivered medical supplies in Africa, gone on an Alaskan cruise, stayed in a lodge in the Amazon jungle. I was in awe. All of these things seemed so lavish, things my family would never do. Yet he and his family were not wealthy, were not indulgent, and on the contrary were very frugal.

Between my husband and other friends who'd also experienced more of the world, I started to get the craving. If they could all do it seemingly so easily, why couldn't I?

For years I wanted to figure it out. But living in NYC on an entry-level salary with student loans made me think my parents were right. My husband (then boyfriend) and I would start to plan a trip, only to backtrack once we started looking at costs. My priority at the time was paying off my student loans; every time I saved up a couple thousand dollars, I'd put it all towards my loans. (And I don't regret doing this in the slightest; it's how I paid my loans off six years early.)

After a couple years we decided to move down the east coast, throwing a wrench in another trip plan to cover those expenses. I quit my job and started my own business. We bought a house. All good things!

The first time I finally traveled abroad, I was 29.

My biggest fantasy of them all was England. I had always wanted to go there. Long story short, I became an Anglophile as a third grader reading Harry Potter. And fortunately, England is a pretty accessible first trip for a bubbled American.

Because of everything above, England seemed just as much fantasy as Harry Potter itself. It was like a unicorn; a magical thing that I could only experience in books and movies. The photos of it could not actually be real. The idea of actually going to England felt like actually getting a Hogwarts letter.

I remember talking to my parents on the phone, telling them that my husband and I were planning the England trip, and they said, "I hope you get to go some day." After the call I found my taken aback by their response. We were going. It wasn't going to be a hope and a dream anymore. It was going to be a reality.

I remember getting on the plane and everything feeling surreal. The idea of sitting down, floating through the air across the ocean for a few hours, and landing in England was like magic (and honestly still is if you really think about how amazing it is that we can do that).

I remember trying to sleep, the plane landing, and still being in disbelief that I was actually there in a place that seemed so impossible to get to. All my life, travel had seemed like something other people could do but never me. Yet here I was.