Jacob's Travel Experiences

  As a child, my parents always taught me to embrace foreign cultures, to learn from my experiences, and to pursue any and all opportunities that presented themselves.  The first of these opportunities came my way with the Ocean Classroom Foundation and the "Tall Ships Race" in July of 2000.  At age 15 I climbed aboard the Schooner Lettie G. Howard to serve as her crew for the race from Boston, Massachusetts to Halifax, Nova Scotia, alongside ships and sailors from all over the world.  Along the route we studied the abundance of marine life around us, as well as the histories and pastimes
 of our competitors.

  Several months later, I was fortunate enough to have been selected for enrollment in another Ocean Classroom program, this time, sailing on the Harvey Gammage throughout the United States and British Virgin Islands.  Here again we had a chance to study the cultures of the places we visited, and enjoy an introduction to the very unique marine biology of the Caribbean Sea.  This experience lead to a very peaked interest in understanding the cultures and histories of the Caribbean societies, which later became a focus of study during my four years of university education.
  My desires to pursue educational opportunity, and my love of foreign languages, took me to Spain where I was fortunate enough to spend my third year of college abroad studying in Segovia and Madrid.  Here I lived with two host-families, first in the small village of La Lastrilla, outside Segovia, and then the remainder of the year in the heart of Madrid, enjoying many chances to travel throughout the country and across Europe for about eight months.  I will look fondly on these experiences for the rest of my life as they gave me a firm grasp of the Spanish language, and satisfied my desires to understand and live within a society foreign to my own.
  Upon completion of my formal studies at St. Lawrence University, I began seeking out a volunteer experience abroad that would both continue my education and realize my ever-present desire to visit Central and South America.  After two months of research I came across the Safe Passage/Camino Seguro project based in Guatemala City, Guatemala.  Spending approximately six weeks living and working in the heart of Guatemala I began a quest South passing through El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, before flying down to Cartagena, Colombia.  Over the course of the next five months I was able to travel throughout almost all of South America, including the southern reaches of Patagonia, the Argentinian jungle, and the Bolivian salt flats, before concluding my adventure with a trek to Machu Picchu in Peru.  Throughout the journey I was able to meet and get to know the people whose countries I was visiting.  From bus rides to conversations in a cafe, jungle hikes to cityscapes, I was able to communicate with and start to understand the histories of these people, these new friends who had taken me in along the way.
  I feel that there is no better way to understand a society until you are actually there to see it with your very own eyes, both the joy and the hardships that all humans have to overcome.  The amazing opportunities that I have had to travel have truly given me a special perspective on life, to help me understand that opportunity is endless in the world today, it only depends on how we approach it.