Before I post this very near and dear entry today, I want to take a minute to thank Jennine from Travelaholic Anonymous for the fantastic One Love Blog Award earlier this week. It is MUCH appreciated but between a birthday, a new job, renting an apartment, and loosing a few pop culture icons this week, I’m afraid I forgot to give my appreciation.

Another way this blog is going to be a little different than the usual Frill Seeker entries is that I’m going to open up a little and explain why getting to know not only your culture, but the cultures around you is so important to me. You see, my family came to America from Italy, as I’ve explained many times. My grandfather stowed away on a boat and risked his life for the pursuit of freedom to move to America. My grandmother, as intelligent as anyone I’ve ever known, kept a house and family together, particularly a husband who didn’t speak a lick of English, in Bensonhurst- an area in the south of Brooklyn that few hipsters wander into for it’s lack of record shops and Urban Outfitters.

My mother raised me in that same house where we grew vegetables in the backyard and doubled- sometimes tripled up on bedrooms to save space, and then later in life, she raised me on her own, as a single mother who didn’t get to do too much in her life, because of poor immigrant parents and raising a baby.

Though this might all seem like a disadvantage, I now see how lucky I was to have this kind of upbringing.

I was taught tolerance for other languages since my grandfather didn’t speak English. I learned the importance of growing off the Earth and taking care of it. I was taught how to lean on other cultures in your neighborhood to survive in a sometimes foreign world. Most of all, I learned that life is fleeting and to see and soak in as much as you can. My family might not have been able to do much, but because of their struggles and triumphs, I was able to graduate college (the first in my family), escape minimum wage jobs they had to do, and, best of all, see the world. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t silently thank and appreciate all of their sacrifices.

In light of all this, I would like to offer you the following five reasons to travel.

1. To meet new people and make connections that, at the very least enrich your soul for the greater.

2. Because picking up a few phrases of a new language does count, and you never know where they might come in handy.

3. Because feeling foreign in a new city gives you greater respect and understanding for the visitors to your own.

4. Food is fantastic. Pocky, cod fish and chips, beignets, and butter tarts are not available just anywhere.

5. Because not everyone is able to, in their lifetime, and if you can, you should thank your lucky stars, and then go out and find the lucky stars you’ve just thanked.

Happy Travels, friends.