B minor

When we started the school year, our Section Chair, Professor Frances Frei mentioned it was common for students to earn between 6 and 12 visas travelling during their time at HBS. I’m not sure I believed it at the time, but I’m on the way to that now.

Over spring break in March, a great friend of mine from section, Vicente, lead a few dozen of us on a trek to his home country, Colombia. We spent a few days in Bogota, then a few days in Cartagena, a night on a remote island, before circling back and returning to Boston.

I could bore you with the details, but suffice it to say it was far and away the most memorable trips I’ve been on and I wanted to point to the flickr set from the trip from the blog… so here you are:

colorful colombian crafts

Travel forms tight bonds among people. A passing thought crossed my mind recently:  I became close (or much closer) with many of my really good friends because of a shared travel experience. It may seem like a pretty obvious thought. And I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to some pretty amazing places in my life. (The experience isn’t limited to friends. I also realized I became a lot closer with colleagues after traveling together, too.)

This yarn of thought then continued unraveling. I began to wonder about life 150 years ago, and what it was then that made people form tight bonds. If the whole escapade of flight and cross country/continent leisure travel wasn’t possible, what was it that formed lasting relationships?

Travel seems to work this way for a number of reasons:

1. shared experience – doing anything together provides opportunity to reminisce forever
2. prolonged experience – enduring 2+ days of nonstop anything will have an effect
3. close quarters – it’s hard to disconnect / find alone time while traveling
4. no privacy – it’s hard to pretend to be anything other than what you are when all of the above are happening

It’s hard to replicate these conditions in the average day-to-day, so how do we form the tight bonds (the incredible relationships) that are borne out of incredible adventure in our daily lives? Can we?

(footnote: this is a running theme for me – trying to connect the dots on why people become friends with some people and not with others. expect more on this subject later. also i looked briefly for other writing on the psychology of travel, but didn’t find anything compelling. let me know if you do.)

Earlier this month I trekked to Belize with a few guys from my section. There were a few girlfriends with us as well as a few people in and out from other sections. We stayed in a condo on the beach on Ambergris Caye, which was about a 20 minute flight (in a 10 seat plane) from Belize City. Ambergris Caye is home to San Pedro Town which may better be known as “Last night I dreamt of San Pedro…” from the Madonna song “La Isla Bonita.”

The town is cool, very “island” and what seemed to me to be mix between Miami and New Orleans, only tiny. There are few cars and fewer paved roads on the island. Most people get around in golf carts. For better or worse, I was made “driver” for most of the trip. Most of my pictures are posted on Flickr (link) and I think they tell most of the story, but I’ll fill in with a few highlights. (I was also traveling with a new HD Flip camera, and am waiting for the new iLife to arrive so I can cut down a video of the trip…)

First of all, the food on the island was fantastic – mostly, I suspect, because it was all prepared fresh (not a lot of frozen/processed food on a remote island, it turns out).

Belize is a place for activity. The beaches are not actually the greatest in the world, so the motivation to sit around and do nothing (while still great) is not as I’d imagined. Of the things we did:

Snorkeling – The waters off Belize are home to the second largest barrier reef in the world. I am not a certified diver, but it turns out you can have almost as good an experience just by sticking your face in the water. We did two drops for snorkeling, the first at Hol Chan, where we swam for about an hour observing a ton of different fish and two huge rays (a leopard and an eagle). Awesome.

Then we went to Shark Ray Alley where our guide summoned several nurse sharks over (in the range of 4-5 feet each) and we were able to touch and hold them. Not sure this was the best idea, but in the moment it was pretty exciting.

Zip lining- We took a day trip to the mainland and did some zip lining through the rainforest. This is where you climb up into the tree tops and, sitting in a harness, go gliding across lines from platform to platform. Truly exciting and at times a little nervewracking.

Cave tubing – I’d never even heard of this before Belize. There are miles of cave systems in Belize with rivers running through them. We got into one such river on innertubes and took it through about a mile of cave. It was pretty cool. The darkest natural dark I’ve ever experienced. Also bats. It’s sort of like the lazy river at the waterpark, except the opposite. Exciting, natural, and spooky.

The nights were filled with entertainment at bars, clubs, or at the condo. Stories that will likely persist for quite some time.

A great trip for me, and a highly recommended destination for you…

In a little over four hours, I’ll be departing my house for a trip out of the country. I’m headed to Belize with friends for 8 days. I intend to do mostly nothing while there. Tropical drinks. Sand. Swimming. Did I mention it will be 80 degrees and sunny?

This, a far cry from the frozen/burst pipe over my front porch today. That was fun. Really.

My official job applications are all in, so I’m done working for a little while.

To those of you who have round 2 application deadlines next week, I wish you the best of luck. I remember what I was like this time last year…

I hope that the new year is treating you well, wherever this may find you.

Every year, the media runs out the door the day before Thanksgiving, parks the satellite trucks somewhere in the flow of traffic around the airport, and sets up to do travel woes live shots. Clockwork. Literally. And for a time, working in the media, I recall there being data to support the claim that the day before Thanksgiving was, in fact, the busiest travel days of the year.

This year, I think I’ve heard the term “busiest travel days of the year” about 10 times. Conveniently a little “one of” has been placed before the phrase most recently. I will even buy that a little.

But today! Today I heard on the television, the radio, and read online, that today would be one of the busiest travel days of the year. And when we took my brother to O’Hare today, there was the Fox News sat truck. Parked and ready. But guess what? There were no people there. Literally. O’Hare was wide open – moving cleanly – nothing to see. The highways to and from O’Hare… wide open – moving cleanly – nothing to see.

So. What gives? One of the busiest travel days of the year? Really? Really?

I don’t often post media here (which is weird, I realize). But I’m counting down to vacation, and this picture is making the negative windchill in Chicago so much more bearable.

Belize, I’m coming.