I am writing to invite you to join me (if not in body than in spirit!) on my journey around the world.
If you are receiving this email, you're likely a dear family member, a close friend of mine, my brother Aaron, or of my beloved mother Gwynn.
For some of you, it may be your first time hearing about this trip and for others, you may have heard me talk about this hypothetical plan for years, as I have been thinking about this trip for over 5 years and planning it with my good buddy Anton (aka Big Tony) for over two.
To those of you who have inquired about this trip and had the good nature and patience to listen to me pontificate on its timeline and plans (often sounding like a broken record) might have wondered if this was all a pipe dream. Would this trip ever really come to fruition? I myself wondered the same. I often doubted its real possibility given all the constraints we impose on ourselves in our daily lives. Is now really the best time? What about COVID? Political unrest in X region? Maybe I should just postpone it a little longer?
As it turns out, one thing I have learned over the years is there is never a good time to do anything, and there is always an excuse (often a good one!) to continue to postpone and delay things for a “better time.”
Ultimately, if you really want to do something, you need to go for it. And so - on Jan 19th I departed from Berkeley, CA to meet up with two of my college buddies (Big Tony and Jackson) to begin our journey. Starting in Central America, we plan on working our way around the globe - never booking anything more than a week in advance, giving us the flexibility to “go with the flow” and adjust given the many uncertainties of the world in 2022.
My Inspiration
I have long had a desire to explore the world and my love of travel is due in no small part to the curiosity and adventurous spirit of my mom, my Dad, my brother Aaron, my grandparents, and countless relatives and friends who have instilled in me the beauty of travel, the desire to explore, to learn, and to connect with others.
Starting with my Grandpa Ken, raised in the small iron ore mining town of Virginia, Minnesota, he began to see the world for the first time when he enlisted in the Navy in 1939 and was sent to the North Atlantic to specialize in anti-submarine warfare. With the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was then deployed to the South Pacific as an officer, eventually gaining the rank of Lieutenant Commander and the command of his own ships.
After settling down in Southern California for the remainder of his life, he and my grandmother Bebe continued to enjoy travel often taking my mom, Gwynn, and Uncle Harlan along for various adventures around the world.
My Grandpa’s adventurous spirit continued into his old age. Even a hip replacement and the persistent use of a cane didn’t stop him from taking Aaron and me on a trip to Alaska, where we white-water rafted, climbed glaciers, and flew on a water plane.
My mother, having spent time after high school in Israel, and in American Samoa during medical school, although limited in her international travels as a single mother of two young boys and by her ambitions as an infectious disease doctor, always had an appetite for exploration and travel, a childlike curiosity about the world around her, and a fascination with different cultures and the love of language learning.
As young children, we would listen intently and she would recite bedtime stories to Aaron and me, of the whippersnapper, (a fictional flying dinosaur dragon amalgamation) who would swoop her up every night from her childhood home in Sherman Oaks, and fly her across the world to novel and exciting places, always managing to drop her off back home, right in time for school the next morning.
Aaron and I would listen intently from the edge of our bunk beds, as she spun tales of close encounters with pirates as she soared over the waters of the South China Sea, holding on tightly to the back of the whippersnapper. She would often fall asleep mid-story, exhausted from a long day of seeing patients, and Aaron and I would cry out to her to continue the adventurous saga as our minds raced with excitement.
Later in her life, she was fortunate enough to go on many memorable trips abroad. Excursions to Russia, Scandinavia, Japan, and Africa, as well as family trips to Brazil during my year abroad and our trip to visit Aaron in Israel and explore the ancient city of Petra. Being an animal lover, one of her fondest memories was getting to hold a fluffy 50-pound baby panda in her lap at an animal sanctuary in China.
My father, having grown up in not the most cosmopolitan or diverse of places, Whittier, CA, (hometown of Richard Nixon), I think always had a desire to see what else the world had to offer. After his freshman year at UC Berkeley, he traveled on and off for many years, spending significant amounts of time in India, Asia, and Europe, taking close to a decade to finish his undergraduate studies. I'm not sure how my grandparents, Moe and Bernice, felt about this…but it was the 60’s, so I guess this was not too out of the ordinary? Before I left, his advice of “always trust your instincts'' will definitely stick with me as I explore new territory and push the limits of my comfort zone.
Lastly, my brother Aaron, undoubtedly influenced by the adventurous spirit of our family, took a gap year between high school and college, spending a year in Israel, with trips across the Middle East and North Africa.
His fascination with adventure ultimately led him to quit the safety of a highly coveted and fast-tracked finance job in NYC to head to the jungles of Colombia to purchase and operate The Dreamer, a hospitality brand that continues to this day, run by his childhood friends Jonah and Eric and Italian business partners Fulvio & Michele. I continue to help out where I can and the business continues to grow and thrive. I know Aaron would be very proud to see many of the ambitious ideas he worked so hard on continue to come to life, including our largest project yet, on the island of San Andres set to open this spring.
Dedication
As many of you know, these past few years have been especially difficult for me personally, with the loss of my mother, Gwynn, and younger brother, Aaron.
They were both incredibly special and kind people, with huge hearts and gentle souls. As many of you have been by my side during this time and shared in my heartbreak, I know their passing has left a void in many of our hearts that is hard to fill.
You never know how important family and friends are until you really need them and I want to thank all of you for the love and support you have shown to me and my family over these difficult past years.
Living life fully has taken on even greater importance to me now that I feel like I am living for both my mother and brother as well. I know that they would not want me to close up with sadness, resentment, or self-pity and would want to see me living a happy and fulfilling life. So I don’t intend on letting them down.
As I embark on this journey, I hope to continue to explore a feeling that has started to form in me for some time - the idea that whatever struggles we personally face, as painful as they might be, ultimately bring us closer to understanding the fullness of the human condition, appreciating the finite nature of our existence and accepting the beauty and suffering that are a necessary condition in creating meaning in our lives.
The more we know and understand the human spirit, the greater our ability to empathize and connect with others - something that I hope will guide me in forming new relationships and an openness to new people and cultures.
My dear mother in a text to a friend near the end of her life wrote:
I feel that I am traveling or waddling back in time to become a baby animal again- I can splash with Monty, the pony, and the others including waddling ducklings and my baby children. And we can all swim together. Life is a circle. We are all swimming around fortunate to be bumping into each other. I feel very grateful. Love you, Gwynn.
Her words are a reminder to me of the deep connection we all share - each on our own journey - yet also very much connected - making our way, the best we can, through the collective water in which we all swim - this precious thing we call life.
As I take off on this journey around the world, I will try to lean on my mother’s kindness and curiosity, and my brother's intellect and ambition as guiding stars.
Again, thank you all for the love and support you have given to me and my entire family over the years and if interested in joining along for the ride, I hope my travel updates, likely often delayed and sporadic, will bring some joy and excitement to you as well!
Much love always,
Noah
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