Pilot Episode: "It’s not about you"

I’m sitting in a hotel room in Brazil, twenty-four hours after having left the US via Canada and Panama. Four electronic devices are charging from two electrical adapters on the desk. My two backpacks are on one of the Ricky & Lucy beds, while the second bed is empty and looks really comfortable despite only being a twin size. I can only afford this room for one night, but before I get some rest, I need to write something for my website.

People have been asking me for this website, and today is Day 1 of a ten-month journey so I need to write an article to officially push the start button. While I force myself to write a pilot-episode post that will hopefully set future posts in a trajectory that will be worth reading, I keep replaying a facilitator’s advice from orientation staff training when I was a sophomore in college: “It’s not about you!”

This was good advice for facilitating new college students’ discovery of campus and their informed anticipation of freshman year; and it’s surprisingly relevant advice for me now. There are plenty of travel blogs, and there are a lot of travelers who write better than I do. So I’m going to focus my energy on sharing the stories of the people I meet and the places I visit, with occasional posts of thoughts that I’ll share about the experience.

I invite you to follow along as this website evolves.

Thanks for visiting, thanks for reading, I’ll write more soon.