“It all began the day I found that from my window I could only see a piece of sky.” This is one of the first lyric lines from the song A Piece of Sky from the musical Yentl, and a song that’s meaningful to me as I think about the impact travel has had in my life.

The more I thought about it, the more it dawned on me that travel was engrained into my DNA long before I was born. Snapshots of my own family history include an ancestor leaving Ireland and moving to Scotland in the mid-19th century (possibly because of the Irish Potato Famine), and my maternal Grandfather’s family immigrating from Poland to Canada early in the 20th century. In 1946 my Grandmother and Mother sailed on a War Bride Ship from Scotland to Canada, and 36 years later my parents and I left England to move to Canada. These are just a few of many examples across time.

As for me, my personal history with travel began on the flight over to Winnipeg when I was 18 months old. While I obviously don’t remember this, my Mom tells me I was a hit with the flight attendants and the women sitting behind us, evidence that from early in life I liked being social and meeting people :) A few years later came road trips through the US to visit my Aunt, Uncle and Cousins in Florida, and then came Grade 9, my last year of junior high school.

It was the 1995-1996 school year, and I was 15. Early that year my school held an information evening for graduating students about a 10-day EF Educational Tour through London, Paris and Rome. Somehow, I managed to convince my parents that starting to explore the world was important for my development, and before I knew it Spring Break had arrived and my adventure was about to begin.

We’d fly from Winnipeg to Toronto, and then to Heathrow Airport in London. The tour would start in London, continue by coach to Canterbury, then Dover, by boat across the English Channel to Calais, by coach to Paris, by train along the base of the Swiss Alps to Pisa, by coach to Assisi and finally Rome before flying home.

There are a few moments from this trip that stand out in my memory - looking out the plane window and seeing the deep green of the English countryside, and the feeling of being “home” for the first time since my parents and I left the UK. Both are important to my story and relationship with travel, and something I’ll come back to in the second part of writing about my travels. I also remember moments like seeing my first British phonebooth, eating at a McDonald’s on the Champs-Élysées adorned with marble, chandeliers, and a fountain adjacent to The Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile, and visiting The Colosseum and The Trevi Fountain in Rome.

Each part of the trip was so full of learning, and I was in my happy place. It was my first exposure to being in places where I was surrounded by thousands of years of history, traveling with people that weren’t my family members, and learning about cultures and languages (including attempting to speak said languages). It also taught me the importance of being a responsible and courteous traveler. The experience this trip gave me changed me and is the moment I often comment began my life-long love affair with travel, history and wanting to experience more of our world.