How did the travel bug hit and bit me?

Retrospecting today, I was asking myself, where did it start? When did I get so addicted to exploring. It hit me subconsciously but really hard!

My parents decided to spend summer of ’01 in Waterloo, Canada as dad was working at the University. We stayed in the countryside full of students from all over the world. My sister and I used to spend our evenings at the nearby campus club and used to meet a lot of students from around the globe there. 

One such evening at the club, I was speaking with a girl who was our neighbor too. She told me how people traveled wherever they wanted to once they finished college and had some savings. How she went trekking with friends for a month the previous year and was planning to backpack Europe next fall.

This may sound pretty normal to me or anyone today, but 13 years back to a 13 year old Indian girl it seemed truly rebellious, nonsensical and scandalizing. The whole idea of backpacking and travelling the world was so very cool yet so intimidating.

Probably that’s where it all started. It seemed almost impossible to me to have been ever able to do it but now I know where the seeds sprouted. Rest is history ;-)