By the time I was 11 years old, I had moved to 3 different countries. I was born in the United States in the insignificant town of Stillwater, Oklahoma. When I was 5 years old, my parents decided to move back to Egypt, their homeland. We were in Cairo for a year, then moved to Saudi Arabia, where my dad was working for the ministry of economics. After 4 years in the prison-like city of Riyadh, we moved back to Stillwater in time for my oldest sister to finish high school. I think having to re-adapt again and again at such a young age to different places, cultures, languages, and people…it really becomes a part of who you are. You're a born-and-raised traveler.
I didn’t understand why I felt this way for the longest time, because most of my family didn’t feel this way. And they still to this day don’t understand why I’ve always had such itchy feet. So I guess the urge to travel imprinted on me because I was at a certain developmental age.
My parents did their fair share of traveling as adults. At 29, my dad came to the United States for his master’s degree. Three years later he went back to Egypt, married my mom, and they both came back and settled in Oklahoma to pursue higher education. All the moving around and traveling they did after that was always with 5 kids, so I guess traveling to them was a necessary burden. While my mom aches to go back to Egypt, she’s only gone back once in the past 10 years for a 3 month vacation. I think she’s been perfectly un-happy to settle away from her homeland, but settling in the United States is every foreigner’s dream, so she did it anyway. My dad still works in Saudi Arabia since he couldn’t find a stable job when we came back to the states. At 63, he flies back and forth every 4 or 5 months to visit us. Even though it’s a gruesome routine and he only does it out of necessity, I guess wanderlust could be hereditary from his side….
