Hello! My name is Libby Turner, and I’ve been writing about my travels for friends and family since I took my sweet Mama to Europe in 2006. Everyone who knew her knew what an incredible adventure it was, so emails kept them a bit up to date on our escapades and allowed us to relive those amazingly special experiences later.
A 14th century traveler, Ibn Battuta, once said, “Travelling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller”. That is oh-so-true for me.
Hitting the Road
I have loved to travel ever since I was a kid. Whether sitting in the rear-facing jump seat of grandaddy’s white 1960’s station wagon on a Sunday afternoon drive, or lounging on one of the bench seats in his repurposed Tom’s Peanut truck for an overnight at the beach (our stripped-down version of the campervan!), time with Grandparents meant hitting the road.
We didn’t travel very far physically when I was growing up in North Carolina. The ocean was three hours east, family were three hours west, and summer camp until late teens was three hours north. But reading was a staple in our family’s approved list of activities, and I traveled mentally far and wide. My mom would drop my sister and me at the public library where we would read for hours, pick out stacks of books for the coming two weeks, and sometimes stop off at Hardees – the only fast-food restaurant in town – on the way home. For folks who rarely ate out – that was high adventure!
Much of my reading through the years has been of far-flung places including stories of committed missionaries in locations difficult to imagine, and of historical and impactful events such as World War II, the holocaust, and the cold war. All of these led to a particular interest in Europe, and in the former Soviet Union as I prayed for Christian Believers who suffered for their faith.
My mom was an adventurer at heart, and we talked many times about the places we would like to go and what we would do and see there. My jobs with the American Red Cross and FEMA had me traveling across the U.S. and its territories after disasters, and eventually, I travelled out of the country to Russia, and took my Mom on that spectacular trip to Europe. After that, I knew I would keep traveling as often as I could.
So far, I have been fortunate enough to visit most of the U.S. states and several territories and more than twenty-five countries. Each has left its own unique and indelible impression. While the scenery, the architecture, the colors, sights, and sounds are enchanting and exhilarating, the people always make the most lasting impact.
I clearly recall the woman collecting water from a ditch on the side of the road in Uganda. We locked eyes as our vehicle approached and I could not look away. A woman who had to collect water in recycled jerry cans because she had no other access to the source of life, stood poised, unmoving, unwaveringly hold my eye with such dignity and beauty that I think of – and pray for her to know the source of eternal life – to this day.
St. Augustine said, “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page”. In our technological age, we can travel electronically to remote places very different from our own. Perhaps as you read the pages of this blog, it will aid you in also reading a few pages in the book of the world.
I am so very grateful for the opportunities to travel and to share with those who enjoy rambling along, and those who use the information for their own planning – both of what to do and what not to do! Hopefully you will be encouraged, enlightened, influenced, or just entertained by something you read here. If so, it will be worth having written it.
Rambling along…