Sometime in the spring of 1985, I sat around my bedroom with its yellow flocked wallpaper and planned a backpacking trip to Europe with two friends. With $2,000 that I saved from my summer jobs as a secretary in a Solenoid valve factory, I bought a plane ticket, a Eurail pass, a huge backpack, and six weeks worth of hostels and snacks. 

Our travels took us through England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Switzland, and Italy. I turned twenty in Venice. We were befriended by nuns in Rome who let us sleep in their convent and by a troop of Irish boy scouts on a stomach-churning boat trip to France. We met Australians who extended their European travels for two years, picking carrots when they need more money, and Nonnas from Naples who shared their lunch with us. Without Google Maps, we unfolded paper maps to navigate the spaghetti streets of London and Rome.

It was a transformational trip, where I realized that I could go whereever I wanted and talk to anybody. I learned that I didn’t need a whole lot of money to go places, just good organizational skills and a perky attitude. Over the years, those skills and perky attitude have served me well both in future travels and in life. And we’re boarding a flight to Italy tomorrow evening.

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