I’ve always loved traveling.

Apparently when I was in Montessori school (a form of teaching that emphasizes self directed learning), my mom had to confront the teacher because I would come home each day with the same maps that I had meticulously colored the day before. The teacher just shrugged and said, “That’s all she wants to do.”

I think she was on to something. Since my map coloring days in Montessori school, I’ve managed to get out and travel quite a bit. I’ve been to Costa Rica, Mexico, and various places in Europe. I went on a 2 month bike trip through Canada and the US west coast; I toured some National Parks in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas; I participated in a summer Arabic program in Jordan; and I worked as a traveling school photographer where I got to visit a bunch of small Texas towns.

All these experiences helped fuel my passion for travel, but there is obviously still so much more to see. And ever since my last long trip out of the country (which sadly was about 3 years ago), I’ve wanted to take off again. But with a comfortable house, a good job, a cat, a sweet boyfriend, great roommates, amazing friends and family, and a ton of personal side projects…it’s been pretty damn hard just to pick up and leave.

I honestly didn’t think I’d be taking any long trips for a while. Besides, I’d been keeping too busy to go anywhere. In addition to hosting craft nights and vegan potlucks, selling crocheted plastic bags, and working full time at an Austin Internet marketing company, I had purchased a large amount of restaurant equipment, started a vegan blog, and had been planning to open a restaurant.

Things were going well, but I couldn’t help but feel a little torn about my decision to be so grounded. I was getting a little restless and it was starting to look like I’d be putting my travel plans on hold again…perhaps for a very long time.

So instead of traveling, I spent my time doing travel related things: watching nature documentaries; browsing the travel sections of bookstores; listening to foreign language podcasts; eating lots of international food; joining hospitality groups and cultural exchange organizations; teaching ESL classes to adults from around the world; joining a Polish folk dancing troupe; working at a Middle Eastern import store; writing assessment questions to test English language proficiency; hosting potlucks themed around various countries; and entering travel photo contests.

This last activity is what ended up winning me a trip around the world!

Imagine my surprise when I got a phone call from Doug Lansky saying my photo won the grand prize for Lonely Planet’s Signspotting contest.

I wasn’t sure if I should believe him or not. It seemed legitimate…and I remembered submitting the picture… but I didn’t want to get my hopes up.

Shortly after that phone call, I got the following email:

Signspotting Round The World Winner

Hey Cristen
It was a pleasure to speak to you on the phone. Again, congratulations! This email is your official notification that you have won the year’s best photo for your photo of the out-of-order jump-prevention phone on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. It won based on online voting hosted on Bootsnall.com’s website and partnered with a link from CNN.com’s travel page as well as Signspotting.com.

The Grand Prize, as noted on the website, is a Star Alliance Round-The-World Ticket. It’s an Economy-Class ticket for 39,000 miles that is non-transferable.

The Director for Media Relations at Star Alliance, can put you in touch with someone to help you book your ticket after you’ve figured out where you’d like to go.

Also, your sign photo will be appearing in the “More Signspotting” book coming out this November.

Best,
Doug

After a series of emails back and forth, I was reassured that this wasn’t a scam and I would in fact be getting a free RTW ticket!

I’ve known about this trip for over a year now, but it didn’t really sink in until recently when I submitted my itinerary to the travel agent.

I’ll be starting my trip in just a little less than 2 months!!!

I’m so excited!!!!

Posted on August 6th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Trip Preparations