Category: Writing Life
When I was a kid, my family went to Disney World in Florida. Apparently, the favourite Disney theme park for most kids is The Magic Kingdom, but I loved The EPCOT Center’s World Showcase. Now an adult, I realize this is hardly an adequate representation of the world’s countries, but to a small town girl who’d never been off the continent, I was mesmerized! I had so much fun learning about different cultures and countries that I didn’t want to leave.
At the time, I didn’t know why I was so fascinated by EPCOT, but when I grew up and started traveling on my own, leaving the continent for the first time at age 27 (by cashing in my inaugural writer paycheque), I figured it out – I have an insatiable curiosity about people. I’m the kind of traveler who is most interested in discovering what people do currently and did historically in the places I visit. Beautiful scenery alone doesn’t hold my attention. I want to know what people do/did amidst that breathtaking landscape or in that crumbling ruin, because “people doing things” are stories.
No wonder so many writers have wanderlust.