I have blessed to be able to experience places that most of the world has only heard about. And I am going to do my best to see as much more of it as I can before my time is through.

New Orleans is the best city in the US, and no one can convince me otherwise. I was able to live there for 5 years and see colors, smell the smells (though some times unpleasant) and hear the music of this amazing city. It is a polarizing city, very love it or hate it. But for those who love it, there is no place in the world like it. I know what it means to miss New Orleans.

On the island of Borneo is the small country of Brunei, and when you tell someone you live there, their first question is always ‘Where is that’. But I do hope more of the world goes to see Brunei and Borneo as a whole. Over half the country is rain forest and most of it still undamaged by man, a very rare thing in our world of palm oil, sugar cane and other destructive mono-cultures. Waking up to 20 Macaque monkeys on your lawn or a hornbill beating on your window are sights you might never be able to see anywhere else.

Enveloping would be the word I would use to describe Hanoi Vietnam. Crossing a busy street, you are surrounded on all sides by scooters, they honk in a secret language as flow around like a stream flows around a stone. The steam on a giant pot of soup, the smell of the fresh herbs drifting down the sidewalk, beckoning to partake of its meaty goodness. The smoke of meat being cooked over charcoal, wrapped in rice paper, dunked in fish sauce, flavors you can’t find anywhere else.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” H. Jackson Brown P.S. I Love You: When Mom Wrote, She Always Saved the Best for Last