Excerpts from Travis Simmons winning essay for the Independent Travel portion of the 2014 Building A Better World Scholarship. 2014 BBW Winners.
Travel Philosophy – “Why do people travel? What experiences do people gain from traveling? Traveling to a foreign location, whether it is a city, state, country, or even a continent, may be one of the most eye-opening experiences one has in their lifetime. People may have different reasons for traveling. Some people may travel just to explore new places. Others may study abroad to expand their learning in a new environment. Maybe even some people have the required finances and overwhelming generosity to make their destination a better place to live.”
Why the Philippines? – “Traveling to the Philippines will give me the opportunity to learn about my heritage from my relatives, and give them an opportunity for me to share my experience living in the United States. This little “exchange” of knowledge between my relatives and I will be a mild form of global interaction between the two nations. Maybe I will learn a bit more of Tagalog when I get back. Through the beauty of globalization comes a possibility of bigger, developed first world countries giving assistance to smaller second or third world countries.”
Third World and First World – “Being citizens of a developed first world country, my family and I have personal obligations to give a helping hand to our relatives who live in the third world. On a small level, my grandmother sends monthly remittances to our relatives in the Philippines to help them out. I, on the other hand, would like to help out with a bigger issue: the Philippine typhoon. Not only do I want to help my relatives, but would also find it necessary to assist those who went through a devastating experience, such as losing their home.”
My Travel Plan – “My plan for travel is to travel to the Philippine Islands with my grandmother. I chose this destination because it is outside of the United States and is where most of my family resides. Another reason for going to this particular destination is to experience what it is like living in a third world country. I plan for the trip to be two weeks long in December of 2014. During my trip I would like to meet my relatives in person for the first time, explore what the Philippine Islands have to offer, and assist the victims of the typhoon with whatever they need to get accomplished. I will document the two week trip by logging in a daily journal.”
Travis and his Grandma. Stay tuned for Travis travel journal which we will post here on the blog.
