Growing up, I never really had an interest in traveling, instead preferring the comforts of home. My first official “travel” was flying from China to the United States in 1992. I remember getting off the plane, seeing all the strange new people that looked nothing like me, and starting to cry asking my mom to take me back home. The problem was that this WAS my new home and I had to readily assimilate into a new and unfamiliar surrounding.
My desire to be homebound remained strong even as I become accustomed to life in the United States. Early on we did not have money to go anywhere but my parents worked hard and soon enough we were taking vacations to nearby cities and then across state lines. I bitched and moaned and threw temper tantrums to try to guilt them into getting us home as soon as possible. Sometimes it worked and we’d turn around and drive right back home after two hours on the road.
I cannot pinpoint exactly when my aversion to traveling disappeared but somewhere along the way, I realized that seeing new places, talking to new people and eating new food wasn’t all that bad. My first real trip that I distinctly recall enjoying was actually an organized Chinese Group Tour through Europe. If you have ever experienced a Chinese Tour, you know that it is a terrible way to travel. Most your time is spent on the bus and you are only let out for short periods of time to use the restroom and take photos. Not to mention mandatory shopping stops where you are encouraged to buy things so the tour company can collect commission. You can totally see the displeasure on the tour guide’s face when you don’t show any interest at the shopping stops. We drove through 7 different European Countries over span of 14 days and I left only getting a small taste of Europe. Nevertheless I found myself excited about being in a different country and experiencing a different culture.
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Yet as soon as I discovered my want for travel, I suddenly was unable to do it. I started medical school in 2009 and spent the next four years in Philadelphia either holed up in the library or in the hospital. Barring an occasional weekend trip to New York, there was no time or money to go anywhere. An endless cycle of sleep, study, get takeout commenced. I bonded with one of my classmates over our shared misery and before I knew it, we were husband and wife.
In 2013 my wife and I moved to back to California to start our residencies. They say that in medicine, the busiest time of your life is when you are a resident – while true, it is also the time when you start collecting a paycheck and getting vacation time! We seized every available opportunity and spent every dime to travel internationally and during the course of our residency, we traveled to Vietnam, China, Kauai, Belize, Spain, Costa Rica, Peru, and Iceland.
Now as full fledged physicians, we both take 4 weeks per year to travel internationally. Last year we traveled to Egypt, Greece, and Taiwan. Our style of travel has evolved from cheap travel to more efficient travel as time has become our most precious resource.
I started this blog as a hobby without particular purpose or target audience in mind. I don’t offer any advice nor do I suggest any itineraries to follow. In the end, these writings may just serve as my outlet to get away from the daily grind and reflect back on a time of leisure and adventure!