Hello. My name is Erika and I am a Travel Addict.

I’m going to keep where this picture was taken a secret because the location is not important. What is important is the dynamics in this picture: Erin, my best friend, on my left and the plane we are about to board in the background. That’s how I would define my life: always boarding the next plane with my other pea from the pod by my side. I can’t think of any other way to exist. Whether it be back-packing through Europe by ourselves, hitching it through the Old West in an RV, or boating around Alaska, Erin and I live/eat/breathe/shit/cry/bleed/laugh/fart traveling. But how can anyone blame us? Shortly after Erin and I became friends in the first grade, she and her parents moved to Japan, and my parents and I moved to England. We were so young, we didn’t keep in contact. It wasn’t until the first day of eighth grade we were reunited by some weird twist of fate. We discovered that we’d both moved back to the same city within weeks of each other (and we discovered we had very little in common with anyone else). From then on, we were conjoined. We dreamed big dreams of continuing to travel the world. We shared stories from our own experiences being submersed in non-American culture. We’d save money like it was our job, only to blow it all on fancy dresses in France, gold and leather in Italy, and good beer in Dublin. The airport is our neighborhood, the other travelers our neighbors. We’ve schemed people, bartered with merchants, and danced with strangers in the streets. We’ve sampled the local cuisine only to vomit hours later. We’ve learned bits and pieces of at least 7 languages so we can ask for directions, go to the bathroom, and order a round of drinks for our new friends at the bar. Wherever we go, it is our objective to make new friends and to give a better impression of Americans. We take loads of pictures, but they can never really bring you close enough to what was actually going on at the time.

The location of this picture is irrelevant. What’s happening in this picture happens a lot. We’re damn lucky.