I'm at Barnes & Noble right now since I've been doing some research on traveling to Peru recently, and also because I always feel an inevitable need to get out of the house whenever Im there. All of my childhood life I've been an outdoor kid, always moving around, causing trouble, but it was just recently that I discovered how truely eager I am to "move around." Ever since me and my 3 buddies traveled to Costa Rica this past spring break, I've realized and seen with my own two eyes, not through pictures or television, of how beautiful and profound these foreign places and people are. I've traveled before in my childhood with my family to such places as Japan and numerous tropical destinations and stayed at 4-star hotels, ate up-scale food, and slept in all of the illusory comfort as if we were smug tourists in a particular state of class. And through all of those early travels it never hit me, until I slowly but surely began veering off the trampled path as I matured. Now, I look around and it baffles me of how so many people I see, read about, and know still travel; including my own family unfortunately. They pack their large designer suitcases 'till the brim, leave behind their monotonous comforts and luxuries of home in eagerness and excitement only to go to a foreign land of unknown possibilities and ultimately shackle themselves with the same trivial amenities that they had left at home. But it is not any one person's fault. I realize that it is just natural human ignorance. They don't know what the rest of this world has in store for them, and the only way to find out is to truely, hands-on, appreciate foreign cultures and landscapes. It saddens me to know that many people will overlook this essential human obligation of "traveling." A great traveler in Pico Iyer once said, "Travel is not really about leaving our homes, but leaving our habits." I love this quote. It's a short one, only a few words, but in just that it totally and utterly braces the depth and levels of traveling.