Being a travel writer is a very specific niche in the writing world. Because of this, I often get the question, “what made you want to do that?” Well, how I was raised, my experiences, the places I went, and where I came from are all intrinsic parts of the answer to that question.

I grew up in a small sleepy Midwest town three hours from any major airport that was a means to escape the doldrums of small-town life. Yet there has never been a time when traveling to what felt like foreign and exotic locations wasn’t part of my existence. For several years we went to Mexico or Florida, or the Gulf shores for vacations. To my young mind, those destinations were exciting and so different from the cornfields and blacktop roads of home that I may have well been in the Amazon rainforest. I didn’t realize it at the time, but traveling to far-off lands for family vacations wasn’t the typical experience for most people. Although I don’t remember it well, my first trip out of the US was to Mexico (Cancun, precisely) when I was three years old. I was so young, but I remember playing in the ocean waves, swimming in the pool at the resort, and most notably in my memory bank, the stuffed dolphins and whales my parents bought for me to bring home as souvenirs. These trips to the beach were the beginnings of a life-long wanderlust and passion for travel.

Still, as I grew older, nearing my teenage years, the seminal trip that cemented my need for new sights, smells and adventures occurred. Gone were the days of Mexico beaches or Florida boardwalks, replaced by my first real trip abroad. That year, we were headed to the Amalfi Coast in Italy. Included in our itinerary were places and things I had heard about and read about during my childhood, the places that alighted a young boy’s imagination with dreams and imaginary adventures. We would go to Pompeii and the Colosseum, among many other fascinating places. I remember the flight clear as it was happening right now because we had booked business class seats, which to me only meant I could lay my seat all the way down for the thirteen-hour flight, and I got fed three times as we winged our way across the ocean. Italy was a whirlwind of jet lag, gelato, limoncello (apparently, in Italy, it is OK to serve children alcohol after a meal if they are with their parents), ruins, and ravioli. Pompeii was sobering in its macabre display of the last moments of a civilization before being buried in a searing pyroclastic flow. The Colosseum felt alive with the ghosts of gladiators, exotic animals, and roaring Roman crowds. I ate ravioli as often as possible, comparing each heaping plate of the pillows of meat or cheese covered in tangy sauce to the previous ones.

Each day, I sampled gelato from a different shop, convinced that life could not get better than that moment. We visited Capri, where we climbed the narrow, hilly streets, arriving wind weary after a hydrofoil ferried us across the choppy waters to the tiny island. I remember eating the creamy chocolate-flavored treats with tangy lemon or orange essence derived from the oranges and lemons growing all over the island. All these years later, I can close my eyes and immediately be transported back to Italy—the sights, the smells, the tastes, the excitement of being someplace so different from my home. It was on that trip that the joy of experiencing novel places was imprinted on my soul. It was also the fledgling beginnings of my travel writing career in the form of a journal that I wrote and illustrated, documenting the journey. To this day, I love nothing more than packing a bag, throwing my journal into my backpack, getting in my truck, or heading to the airport for a new adventure that will quell my restlessness while reinvigorating my soul.