The Votes Have Been Tallied and…

 

Yay. Yay. Yay. I am over the moon ecstatic. Thanks to your votes, I won a $5,000 voluntourism grant from Travelocity’s Travel for Good® program. I’ve been more than lucky in my 37 years, but this is one of the biggest and bestest honors bestowed upon me. Ever. I’m in awe of how many amazing people I have rooting for me and The Global Citizen Project to succeed. Thank you.

Details are still a bit fuzzy, but I’ll be headed to the Big Apple the week of November 15th for WE tv’s gala award event. This is exactly one week after the 20th anniversary of my mother’s death, so there is a lot personal significance in winning this award beyond its obvious awesomeness. I will also need to pick a voluntourism project from one of Travelocity’s four program partners (tough decision). As if that’s not cool enough, I will also be featured in an upcoming issue of Ladies’ Home Journal and receive a free subscription for my future reading pleasure.

All around, it’s one heckuva win and I am thrilled to accept. I cannot thank you all enough for voting and persevering my incessant reminders to vote. You all rock and I’m so glad you’re on my team. You make me feel like I can do anything.

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More than a decade ago, I ran the Personals and Promotions Department at the Philadelphia Weekly. Every week, I’d help hundreds of lonely hearts pen personal ads that would hopefully, land them a love connection (and help fill my 10-page, back-of-the-paper section). In addition to offering up my wordsmithing skills, I’d coordinate singles events on a weekly basis – everything from awkward heterosexual meet and greets at hipster bars to bump and grind gay dance parties to the occasional “Anything Goes” swingers soiree for the dirty birds. I could fill more pages than you can imagine with my experiences, and if you buy me a beer sometime, I may be willing to dish some of the more (ahem) colorful details.

My dating life never sucked more than once I’d started penning a widely popular advice column “Ask Me Anything,” and was deemed the local dating guru. Sure, I was the first point of contact for hundreds of eligible bachelors, and I even dabbled in a few first dates with some of my more charming advertisers, but the most long term commitment I managed to muster up was a with stalker who landed himself in jail (and then proceeded to harass me for more than a decade). Since this incident, I’ve been fiercely protective of my identity and whereabouts, going so far as to use pseudonyms in several editorial outlets and use a mailbox service several miles from my residence.

 So when the world of social media started to evolve, the idea of sacrificing my privacy gave me serious pause. I’d fought so long to keep a low-profile, but was wooed by Facebook and Twitter and blogging and new possibilities of networking and personal connections that I decided to take a chance when I launched my Kickstarter fundraising campaign last November. I mean, there was no way in the world I could ask strangers to help fund The Global Citizen Project without full disclosure of who I was. I don’t regret my decision for a second.

 Since then, I’ve made countless friends via social media networks and have never, ever had a less-than-stellar experience with a cyber someone I’ve met in real life (or IRL in Twitter speak). There’s a long “wish list” of Twitter friends I hope to someday cross paths with, but in the meantime, I practice reasonable cyber caution and welcome the possibility of making acquaintances via avatars, handles and 140 character limits.

 Next week, I especially look forward to meeting Raquel Segura (@aireslibre) on a long layover in Miami, then Alison Garland (@AliAdventures7) when I arrive in Quito, Ecuador. When it comes to socializing and making connections, we live in a very different world these days. It’s weird and crazy and absolutely fascinating, and I find that if you open yourself up to it, there are some really beautiful connections to be made via social media.

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Traveling is what sustains me. You can strip me of my every last material possession, but please keep your paws off my passport. As much as I love exploring new places (and revisiting much loved places), meeting new people is just as important to me.

Mid-way through my volunteer project at Campamento Tortuguero Platanitos, I had the serendipitous luck of meeting another West Coast wanderluster named Jason. He arrived in a nasty downpour on his motorbike, two days shy of the six month mark since he set out from Buenos Aires. From Argentina, he wound his way through South America, crossing into Central America, eventually taking a “time out” in Sayulita, a surfing town/fishing village 35 miles north of Puerto Vallarta. Feeling feeling a little down about Mexico, he thought a quick stay at Turtle Camp would turn things around.

Similarly to me, Jason decided to take on a major travel adventure after 11 years at his finance job (I took on The Global Citizen Project a few months after my 12-year anniversary of freelancing fulltime). It was his first time in South America and I reveled in his stories about experiencing these countries and cultures from the unique vantage point of a motorbike. Sure, I’d been to many of the same destinations, but I’d experienced them as a luxury traveler (for work) or as a backpacker (for play) and always got around via planes, trains, busses and automobiles. Obviously, traveling solo via motorbike affords greater flexibility and advantages, but it also presents a set challenges typically unbeknownst to us backpacker travelers – from bribery at border crossings and hot-as-hell heat to vicious summer storms and batshit crazy Latin American drivers.

Swapping spirited travel tales over five hours of turtle patrol in the late hours of the night was just the dose of inspiration I needed after spending five intensely meditative nights inside my head. (My thoughts tend to go inward and deep when patrolling the beach in the late night hours.) It makes my travel lovin’ heart so happy to see people hatch ambitious travel plans (well, any travel plans, really) and make them happen. It makes me even happier when they say, “This was the best decision I’ve ever made.”

As travelers we collect all sorts of things – experiences, memories, photos, passport stamps and souvenirs – but it’s the conversations with other travelers that stick with me the most. Here’s wishing Jason safe travels and continued adventures as he makes his way north through Mexico and heads home to Los Angeles after more than six months south of the Border on his bike and on the road.

You can read all about Jason’s motorbike travels on his blog, North by Motorbike.

So fess up. How many of you fantasize about packing it all up and taking a six-month or one year hiatus from your job and everyday responsibilities? If you had the time, flexibility and freedom, where would you go and what would you do? We’re talking wish list scenarios here, so nothing is too outlandish or over-the-top.

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