Pining the Map

Create Your Own Visited States Map

When I was growing up, I saw a movie in which a girl pushes a pin into a map on her wall for every city she’d visited. I don’t remember the name of that movie or TV show, but I remember the longing for my own map and the desire to have so many travels that the map would be stuck so full of pushpins that you could hardly see the lines and designations underneath.

My travel dreams have always been of the large variety — a cross country road trip to visit ever state in the continental United States, trekking from China to India over the Himalayas, flying to the tip of South America and and making my way back up to the U.S. by car, train, bike, boat, or foot alone.

None of these dream trips have manifested as of yet. Life is full of obligations and I have not been good about planning ahead in terms of saving up funds for such a trip, but that has not stopped me from dreaming.

I must also admit that I have immensely lucky and grateful to have landed a job that has allowed me to travel on a smaller scale, such as with my recent trip to London. I may only be able to touch down into some places for a day or two, but it’s a gift to just be there for even that amount of time. I’ve had some beautiful experiences.

Though travel sometimes exhausts me and I always fun myself grateful for the comfort and peace of home, my wanderlust is never doused. Often the act of travel stoked my longing for more worldly wandering. The world is just so full of so many places to see and people to meet.

Where have you traveled and where do you long to go?