That Best Important Trip.

Beau Gambold, contributing writer.

Just after graduating college in the spring of 2008, I remember a moment looking at a South Dakota quarter with an image of Mount Rushmore on it.  I thought to myself, “That is a place that I will never see,” and I was okay with that. I wasn’t sad. It was a moment of accepting my limitations as a person. A few days later I left for my first trip planning events for a presidential campaign. It was a trial trip, but I did well and was offered to stay on for a second trip. This next trip was to South Dakota.

After the event was over we drove up to Mount Rushmore. Hiking up the mountain less than two weeks after this minor epiphany, I realized how unforeseeable life can be. The whole world is open to us. After the campaign I joined the Peace Corps and spent over two years in Thailand. Since then I have traveled through Southeast Asia, India, Kenya, and across Central America and the United States. These experiences have made me who I am. I have not only learned more about how people live around the world, but each time I return with a better since of who I am and what I believe. Travel is a way of life and an invaluable experience.