welcome!
hey, that's me!
Hi! My name is Alex, and thanks for visiting my page to share my passion for traveling!
There are surprising travel experiences in every corner of the world. Many people, when they travel to a new country or new city, just hit the highlights - the familiar, popular, well-known landmarks. I really love to dig a little deeper when I go somewhere, and find interesting places that are off the beaten tourist track. Sure, I've visited plenty of the popular sights too (there's a reason they're popular, after all), but it's more rewarding to me to visit, for example, some little known state park with an amazing view and not be able to see another human being.
My goal with this blog is to show you, dear reader, some of the fascinating, beautiful, scenic, unique, quirky, awe-inspiring, bizarre, and surprising places that I've been.
There are surprising travel experiences in every corner of the world. Many people, when they travel to a new country or new city, just hit the highlights - the familiar, popular, well-known landmarks. I really love to dig a little deeper when I go somewhere, and find interesting places that are off the beaten tourist track. Sure, I've visited plenty of the popular sights too (there's a reason they're popular, after all), but it's more rewarding to me to visit, for example, some little known state park with an amazing view and not be able to see another human being.
My goal with this blog is to show you, dear reader, some of the fascinating, beautiful, scenic, unique, quirky, awe-inspiring, bizarre, and surprising places that I've been.
My background
I grew up in Kansas City, right smack in the middle of the US. It's not exactly a major tourist hub, but nevertheless I caught the travel bug from a very early age because my parents always took the family on vacations every summer. Dorky child that I was, I always loved geography and spent much of my free time poring over maps and atlases on the living room floor. By the time I was nine, I was planning our itineraries. I had some input from my parents ("No, Alex, I don't want to drive 15 hours in one day - let's spend the night somewhere closer"), but I was picking many of our destinations and planning our route. By the time I graduated from high school I had visited 35 states, as well as Canada and a handful of countries in Europe (thanks to two school trips, which kindled my interest in international travel), and had seen many of America's famous sites such as the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Niagara Falls.
After graduating college with a degree in political science, I worked as a file clerk and then a paralegal in a law firm. While there were aspects of those jobs that I liked, overall I felt unsatisfied being stuck in a cubicle all day. In 2007, I left my job and proceeded to have a midlife crisis (best to get it out of the way early, right?). I hadn't really done any traveling while working, so the first thing I did after I quit was to take a big month-long trip. Because, hey, I've got time. I started with a road trip in the Pacific Northwest, then a week in Hawaii, and finally off to Greece, Istanbul, and London. Every day of that trip was amazing, and it really rekindled my passion for travel. I vowed after that to never go a year without going somewhere.
And I've held to that. As of now, my travels have taken me to 26 countries and 46 US states, and I'm not planning on stopping any time soon.
After graduating college with a degree in political science, I worked as a file clerk and then a paralegal in a law firm. While there were aspects of those jobs that I liked, overall I felt unsatisfied being stuck in a cubicle all day. In 2007, I left my job and proceeded to have a midlife crisis (best to get it out of the way early, right?). I hadn't really done any traveling while working, so the first thing I did after I quit was to take a big month-long trip. Because, hey, I've got time. I started with a road trip in the Pacific Northwest, then a week in Hawaii, and finally off to Greece, Istanbul, and London. Every day of that trip was amazing, and it really rekindled my passion for travel. I vowed after that to never go a year without going somewhere.
And I've held to that. As of now, my travels have taken me to 26 countries and 46 US states, and I'm not planning on stopping any time soon.
