On travel ...

I've been thinking more and more about my need to travel. I had two plans for my life when I was little, these were the things that would spring into my head when people asked the inevitable "What do you want to be when you grow up?" (Which, by the way, I always hated. You guys too?): a world traveler and a professional student. But, being young and, sadly, conventional, these didn't seem like appropriate answers, so I would come up with a substitute. Based on whatever I happened to be interested in at the moment: marine biologist, underwater photographer, art historian, journalist ...

Now that I'm going through a bit of a crisis (and I mean that in a good way) and I'm trying to figure out who I am, I'm thinking the desires of my childhood may be one good place to start.

So traveling.

Because of fabulous parents, I traveled frequently when I was younger, and my parents were the sort of travelers who chose to up and leave from one week to the next, arriving with a vague sort of notion about what to do, renting a car, finding a map, and then just winging it along the way. Guidebooks were non-existant. (When we arrived in Cancun, Mexico, with no plans to speak of, my dad let my brother, sister and I each pick one activity that we liked from the billboards that lined the road leading away from the airport. It was an amazing vacation. Swimming in an underground river, taking a submarine trip out to a reef - complete with a real-life mermaid, no less - to go snorkeling, and watching my first bullfight. Thanks, dad.)

Now that I'm older, I want to continue that tradition of traveling and being open to all the bizarre, risky and exciting things that go along with it. But since we live in the times we do, and I have a job working for the man (as opposed to being self-employed as my parents were) all I can do for the moment is read. So that in the future (soon, soon please!) I can set out on all the adventures I deserve. Like being given a balloon so that the delivery boy can easily spot me sitting along the river after ordering a bacon-and-pineapple pizza. Or scouring ancient marches aux puces for serendipitous treasures. Or going to see the Paris of the East.

For those of you who want to join me in computer chair-travel, check out these airfare tips and the hotel-porn that is Tablet Hotels. One of my favorite websites ever.