I've been lucky to have the opportunity to travel to so many amazing places. That said, there are still so many more out there, and I can't wait to visit them.
India
My wife and I got married in November of 2019 in Dallas, TX. Her family is originally from India so we had a fusion Indo-Western wedding that was four full days of celebration. It was an absolute blast complete with a Phoolon Ka Gehna (Kashmiri flow ceremony), Hindu ceremony, and American reception featuring a country western dance team; however, that was only the first part of our wedding. Her extended family still lives in India, so we held off on some of the key traditional wedding components in Dallas to save them for a second ceremony in India. That way, the rest of her family, especially her grandparents, could participate in the parts that were particularly meaningful to them. Since my family had never been to India, we decided to use this as an opportunity to explore the country and learn more about the culture. My mother-in-law had everything lined up for us from the moment we landed including transportation, lodging, major attractions, etc. So, my wife and I, my sister, and both sets of parents flew into New Delhi for the wedding ceremony.
After that, we travelled to Udaipur, the city of lakes. This was our first experience with the scale of the palaces in India. They were absolutely massive and beautifully decorated with intricate patterns of brightly colored glass and ceramic inlay. Even the hotels we stayed at were modeled after the palaces so we felt like royalty on our trip.
From there we traveled to Jaipur, the pink city, where we continued exploring the vast number of forts and palaces India has to offer. This time though, we rode up in style as they had elephants take you up to the entrance of Amer fort. After that, we stopped by several textile shops where they showed us the traditional methods for polishing gemstones for jewelry, hand weave rugs and wall hangings, and use block dyes to print their well-known patterns. We also visited Jantar Mantar, which has a collection of 19 astronomical instruments including the world's largest stone sundial.
It was wedding season while we were in India so if felt like every hotel we stayed at was hosting a ceremony every other day. On our way back from dinner one night we stumbled across a baraat, the wedding procession for the groom involving lots of music and dancing. Since I'd just had a baraat at our wedding a month prior, we were familiar with the process. When the wedding guests found out we knew what a baraat was, they pulled us in to dance with them and celebrate the groom. It was a really cool experience seeing my mom dancing with the mother of the groom, who we didn't even know, and both were congratulating each other on the happy marriage of their children.
From Jaipur we headed to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. It's probably cliché but for me personally the Taj Mahal was the most memorable part of the trip. I had high expectations given how famous it is; however, it was even more grand in person. Even the gate you walk through to get to the Taj Mahal could be an attraction all on its own. The patterns that were hand carved and inlaid into the special marble it was constructed from show tremendous craftsmanship and it truly is as symmetrical as they say.
With our tour of the "Golden Triangle" of India finished, we concluded our trip back in New Delhi where we enjoyed as much of the food as we could before we had to fly back to the US. Everywhere we ate the entire two weeks we were there was absolutely delicious. The food was so flavorful with just the right amount of spices and heat to sate the palette. It was really special to get to go on a trip like this with both families so soon after getting married.
National Parks
While most of the trips in this post are about international excursions, I've had some wonderful domestic travel experiences as well. The first national park I visited was Yosemite out in California. A good friend was getting married right outside the park and encouraged everyone to fly in early to get to explore the beauty of the park. My wife and I took her up on that offer and spent the entire morning seeing as many sights as we could. We saw Half Dome, El Capitan, and Bridalveil Falls before parking at one of the local trails and hiking the lower portion of Yosemite Falls. It was so beautiful that we lost track of time and had to rush back to make the wedding ceremony. I don't think we've ever gotten ready so fast in our lives but we made it just in time.
Another big national park trip was for my bachelor party. My best man planned a weeklong trip for eight of us including all of my groomsmen and some close friends from college. We started strong on the first day hiking Angel's landing in Zion national park. I'd always heard about this trail and how amazing the views were supposed to be but had no idea what we were in for. Standing at the base of the cliffs looking up, just barely being able to make out people on the trail, you got your first sense of how grand the scale was. Then, after hiking an hour to the entrance, you look out over narrow path with sheer cliffs on either side leading up to the peak and understand why it's so famous. There are some pictures in the gallery below that show just how narrow, steep, and sheer the terrain was. But once you get to the top, the view is unbelievable, and while the pictures are gorgeous, it's even more breathtaking in person. The next day we hiked the narrows, also in Zion. This was one of the more unique hikes I've done since the entire trek is up a riverbed through water that varies from ankle to knee deep. Pro tip, rent the wader shoes they have at the bottom, your feet will thank you. This was a long hike but a more relaxed one since there isn't really elevation change. After that we hopped over to lake Powell and rented a boat for a day on the water. After doing several all-day hikes it was nice to take a load off and relax, swimming in the water and diving off some of the ledges surrounding the lake. Following that we did a guided tour through the Lower Antelope Canyon. The tour guides were hilarious, since there are so many famous photos of the canyon they would tell you "stand here, look right, and that's the Windows 7 background, now look left and that's the Windows 8 background..." Walking through the canyons was surreal, they were super narrow and everywhere you looked was stunning. We then swung by Horseshoe bend to catch the sunset and timed it perfectly. Another example where the pictures don't do it justice, you need to go in person and see it for yourself to appreciate the scale. Finally, after all that we were on our way back to Las Vegas to fly home when we realized we had just enough time to swing by the Hoover dam to tack on one last landmark to top off the trip. It was an amazing tour of several national parks and a great experience hanging out with the guys. My best man really knocked this one out of the park.
Africa
In the winter of 2017, a fraternity brother from college invited four of us to join him for a Christmas and New Year's celebration at his family's place in Malawi. Growing up his family hosted their local friends for the holidays every year until eventually it became a tradition. Even after he moved to the US for college and work, his family continued the tradition with everyone coming back to Malawi for the holiday party. However, he added a twist where each year, he would bring a different friend group from abroad home to introduce them to Africa. That year, it was the college fraternity friend circle. Myself and three others couldn't sign up for the trip fast enough. The instructions were simple, "everyone gather at JFK international airport on this date and I'll handle the rest" and boy did he put together a world class itinerary for us.
We flew into Johannesburg, South Africa and immediately went to Kruger National Park for a week long safari. We saw so many animals up close including: elephants, lions, water buffalo, rhinos, hyenas, wild dogs, warthogs, kudu, impala, giraffe, ostrich, and tons more. It was crazy how close to the vehicle they get. At one point a herd of elephants was walking straight towards the vehicle and parted around us so we were surrounded by more than a dozen of them. I'm not going to lie, it was more than a little intimidating being arms reach from a pack of lions.
After that we flew to Malawi to visit his parents at their home. I honestly didn't know what to expect but it was absolutely stunning. I had no idea it would be a tropical rainforest paradise. His family had a place on lake Malawi and we spent most of our time relaxing there, meeting his friends from high school, and having more braais than I can count (a braai is a traditional South African barbeque).
After Malawi we flew down to Cape Town, South Africa to finish out the trip. We started by hiking Table Mountain, which overlooks the city and gives you the most amazing panoramic views of the ocean. After that we toured South Africa's wineries in the Stellenbosch region, where I discovered Pinotage and Chenin Blanc, a new red and white wine respectively that I've since introduced my entire family to. On the last day, we hired a tour guide and visited several destinations including Seal Island, Cape Point, and Penguin Beach. Overall, it was the complete travel package between including a safari, lake trip, hiking excursion, winery tour, and penguins.
Europe
While in my senior year at MIT, a friend gave me some great advice. They said, "do something memorable with your time between graduation and when you start working full-time, because that'll be the longest vacation you get until you retire." Roughly two weeks before graduation I was given my official start date at Pioneer, which was set for the end of July. That meant I had roughly a month and a half to do something special. I spoke with some friends in my fraternity and there was a group of them planning a backpacking trip across Europe to visit a number of different countries. Being only two weeks out from the start of the trip I asked what they had already planned, assuming it would mostly be set up. At that time, they'd only booked a flight to Amsterdam to start the drip, a return flight from Rome three weeks later, and had a list of countries they wanted to see somewhere in the middle... that was it. At that point I jumped into full on planning mode to make sure we were ready for the trip. Since we were short on time, I figured out the best route to take to hit the cities of interest, got the Eurail passes lined up, figured out the hostels to stay at, etc.
Shortly after graduation we were on our way for the trip of a lifetime. There were a total of seven of us going on the trip but we weren't all together the entire time. In some cases, we'd break off into separate groups for different counties in the middle then meet up at our next destination and repeat. My route went as follows:
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Brussels, Belgium
Paris, France
Barcelona, Spain
Zurich, Switzerland
Zermatt, Switzerland
Munich Germany
Venice, Italy
Florence, Italy
Rome, Italy (along with the Vatican)
While it varied from city to city, our general strategy was as follows. On day one we'd arrive around noon from our prior destination, check in at the hostel to drop our stuff, grab a locals map guide, then wander around the city and explore for the evening. The second day was when we would hit all of the major landmarks, activities, restaurants, etc. that we had planned out in advance. It was easier to get around after we spent the first day just getting our bearings. The third day we'd check out of our hostel in the morning, hop our train or flight to our next destination, arrive around noon, and repeat. This was a rapid-fire approach since we'd only spend about 48-72 hours in each city; obviously there was more we wanted to do in each but the goal of the trip was to explore and see as much as we could in a short amount of time. What was really interesting was seeing eight different countries back to back in less than a month, you really started to notice all of the subtle differences in the cultures.
There were a ton of highlights from this trip, whether it was hiking the Swiss alps in Zermatt in the shadow of the Matterhorn, to doing a tapas crawl in Barcelona, to watching the artisan glassblower work on the island of Murano off the coast of Venice, to having the Paris rail system shut down due to a workers strike and having to hop from rail line to rail line to get to the airport and catch a last minute flight to Spain before everything shut down. Prior to this trip, I'd done a few international trips to Switzerland, Germany, and Canada with my family, but never anything on this scale. This was where I caught the travel bug and started actively seeking opportunities to travel abroad and explore other countries and cultures.
I've been lucky in my life to have the opportunity to travel to so many amazing places. That said, there are still so many more out there and I can't wait to visit them.