Freelance writer and blogger Emily Antoine from Vancouver, Washington has a goal to visit 30 countries before her 30th birthday. At age 24, she has 18 to go. Emily isn’t just about the quantity though. She spent the summer in Toyko, Japan teaching three- to five-year-olds kids at the American embassy. Between teaching, learning the language and trying to get what she described as the cutest and healthiest children to like Jell-o, she also spotted geishas at Kyoto and climbed Mount Fuji. Before Japan, Emily lived in India and taught in Italy and Germany. Next, she plans to go to Cucuta, Colombia with her boyfriend Roberto to teach in an English immersion school.
Read more about Emily’s own travel-immersion adventures below and on her blogs 50 Days in India and Planes, Trains and Mark Twain.
How do you stay connected while you travel?
I use Facebook to keep in touch with family and friends back home. Skype was my SAVIOR when my boyfriend and I were 5,000 miles apart for eight months. I can’t imagine living back when letters were a primary means of communication. Hostelworld.com was always my go-to site for cheap accommodations in Europe as well as carpooling.com for transportation. Honestly, I used technology a lot, from travel sites and blogs that shared interesting attractions, to booking Ryanair flights for four euro. Technology really helped and I am very grateful.
What makes travel important to you?
It breaks you down a little bit, and then builds you back up. It takes you away from the comfort of your regular routine and forces you to reconcile with who you really are outside of your “box.” Travel is about exploring the world, but also about exploring yourself. Then after it’s broken you down to your core, and you feel the weight of your ego leave your body, you feel like a feather, ready to let the wind carry you. Every day is a new adventure awaiting you. And the more discoveries you make, the more you feed your soul.
Where is your favorite place in the world?
Home. It sounds weird coming from someone who has been hopping around the world for the last year and a half, but it’s the one place I keep coming back to. And I don’t think anyone can fully appreciate the beauty of home until after they have been gone.
I read a quote on a wall in Venice one time. In Italian it said, “The departure is nothing more than the beginning of the journey back home.” I really meditate on that a lot when I’m gone. Every time I leave, it’s a new opportunity for many reasons. Every time, the path always leads back home… and I know I have to return with a kickass story, so I better make every second count.
What’s your favorite travel memory?
My first experience traveling is the one I hold most dear to me, because it was the catalyst to everything I have done since. India was the furthest place on the map, so I went. I jumped feet first into an incredible world of color and dirt.
The memory of India that sticks out the most is put-putting along in a little rickshaw. I was in the front with the driver. My three best travel buddies are crammed in the back. Keep in mind this is a three wheeled, teeny-tiny motor car, a third the size of a golf cart, and we are weaving in and out of these narrow crooked streets. People are jumping out of the way. We have to stop for a herd of cows that walk through the street at some point. Another time for a goat. In India you stop for livestock, not people. It’s monsoon season too, so it’s raining hard, and the streets are flooding, so dirty water is spraying us in the face from all directions. I tried to wear a scarf on my head to keep me a little dry, and now my hair has been dyed bright neon green. I look like a maniac. All of a sudden these lights come on in the rickshaw, like bright blue disco lights. These speakers come on and blasting through the radio is Shakira “My hips don’t lie.” The only American music I had heard at all in the small town where we lived had been on my own iPod, and suddenly this tiny old Indian man is belting that his “hips don’t lie” and he’s “starting to feel you boy.” We have no choice but to sing with him, of course. When we are about midway through the song, the driver slows down again. I assume it’s for another cow, maybe a donkey, but as I turn around I see the butt of a huge elephant. Now, despite what Jungle Book would have you believe, elephants aren’t exactly a common sight in India, especially just moseying through the narrow streets of town. This was the first one I had seen, and as we drove next to it, I reached out and felt his wrinkly grey skin. Atop the elephant, riding in a little chair, was a man, who waved and smiled when he saw us. The elephant then lifted out his trunk, stretched it about six feet, grabbed a mango out of a grocer’s wagon, and presumed to eat his breakfast. It was the coolest thing I have ever seen, green hair, monsoon rain and all. The song ended shortly after, but the blue disco lights stayed on, and next on the drivers playlist? None other than another Shakira’s “Hips don’t lie.” I think we listened to that song six times on the way back home, singing every lyric.
Be sure to follow Emily’s blogs for more funny stories and insights into being a teaching traveler.
Happy travels,
@laurylkitson
*Photo credit to Emily Antoine.