Travel is a big deal in my family. Both of my parents spent time living outside the U.S., and they like trips that go beyond normal beach vacations. We look for local culture and less-visited places, and since I was eight I’ve helped plan where we go. Studying maps, picking routes, and figuring out what to see made geography feel alive—like the globe in our house suddenly had stories attached to it.
Because my parents have friends in different countries, we often visit them and learn what everyday life is actually like. I notice what’s similar and what’s different—food, language, transit, school, even how people spend weekends—and it helps me understand the world better. Those experiences have made me think about a future in the foreign service or another international relations job, where I could keep learning from new places and help connect people across cultures.