I didn't grow up as a traveler.

Most of the people I knew didn't either. Vacations meant a few hours in the car, maybe crossing into the next state. The idea of leaving the country felt like something other people did -- people with different budgets, different lives, different passports.

I got my first stamp well into adulthood. And it wrecked me, in the best possible way.

Not because of anything grand. It was the food I couldn't name, ordered by pointing hopefully at a menu. A conversation with a stranger that I still think about. The way a place smells, sounds, and moves when you slow down long enough to actually feel it. That's when travel stopped being a trip and started being something I couldn't imagine living without.

Since then: 22 countries, 42 states. I've fished for piranha in the Peruvian Amazon and stood on top of Wayna Picchu with legs that had strong feelings about the climb. I've scuba dived in Thailand and stopped to pet the statue of Greyfriars Bobby in Edinburgh because after hearing the history of that sweet, loyal pup - how could I not?

What I'm chasing on every trip isn't a checklist. It's the lore. The local legend someone tells you over dinner. The moment you realize that people on the other side of the world share something fundamental with you -- or that they see the world completely differently, and both things are worth knowing.

Travel inspires me because that feeling of wonder -- the one that hits you when the world gets bigger than you expected -- never gets old. Whether this is your first passport stamp or your fifty-first, it's still in there. My job is to help you find a trip that brings it back every single time.

I became a travel advisor through TripMoxie, one of the industry's respected independent host agencies, with access to preferred supplier programs through the Ensemble Travel Group consortia. I'm trained and approved to book Adventures by Disney, National Geographic Expeditions, Belmond, Hyatt, and IHG, among others. I take the industry side seriously because you deserve an advisor who knows what they're doing, not just someone who loves to travel. Fortunately, both can be true at the same time.