I am well-traveled but I offer nothing in the way of extenuating circumstances except the fact that I am the only traveler in the world who has never had a flight delayed or canceled.

I remember the very day I became a traveler. Up to my twelfth year, I had never left the United States of America. I had barely even left my home in Coral Springs, Florida. Most people I knew were travelers, traveling in and out of the country every other year or so. The lesser traveled flew coach, while the better traveled had fancy membership cards and rode in first class. No one really cared much for the stories that the vacationers who rarely went anywhere that didn't have a beach. But the true sightseers were something else again. They were asked for souvenirs by those of us who cared less about the monuments and landmarks than the gifts. The more curious would pose questions and ask for pictures, and would get almost as much pleasure out of the experience as the travelers get out of reliving them.

Posing questions and asking for pictures might seem nosy to most people, but it was like bread and water to me. My favorite conversations were filled with little anecdotes and the thrills of messed up itineraries, like butter and garlic to freshly toasted bread. Not only did I love the feast, but I didn't mind the chefs knowing that I enjoyed it. I usually welcomed them home, and then I would ask something like this: “Hey-how-are-you-good-fun-trip?” Usually, the traveler would pause, then after a brief exchange of pleasantries, we would probably began a discussion about the different cultures they experienced. If one of my aunts or my mother came by in time to stop me, of course the conversation would be rudely broken off, replaced by pictures. But even so, it is clear that I was the best “encourager-of-foreign-vacations,” and I hope the Travel Agencies will please take notice.

Until this period, travelers differed from non-travelers to me only in that they left the country and we didn't. They liked to brag about their trips, and wanted me to ask them as much as I wanted so they could keep talking, and gave generously of their many pictures for me to keep up asking questions, which seemed strange to me because I wanted to ask questions as much as they wanted me to. Only they didn't know it. The non-travelers gave me no pictures. They couldn't understand my interests, but I was their Nick nevertheless. I belonged with them, to the quiet town, to the country-everybody's Nick.

But changes came in my traveling experiences when I was twelve, and I went on vacation to South Africa. I left Parkland, the town of privets, as Nick. When I disembarked from the jet in Johannesburg, he was no more. It seemed that I had suffered a sea change. I was not Nick of Broward County any more, I was now an experienced traveler. I found it out in certain ways. In my mind as well as in my passport, I became a world traveler.

But I am not tragically well-traveled. There was no great needs for me to flaunt my experiences, nor to brag about them to those less traveled. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to that ostentatious troop of travelers who hold their international travels in the highest esteem and make it their own personal endeavor to make others jealous and whose own misadventures are all ignored during it. Even in the hodge-podge of travels that I have taken, I have seen that the world is a place to be enjoyed, not bragged about. No, I do not brag about the world- I am too busy planning my next trip.

Someone is always reminding me that I have not traveled all the world, that they have seen more. It fails to invoke jealousy in me. I have my entire life to travel. The travels of my ancestors who started fresh in America said “On the line!” The Wright Brothers said “Get set!” and my parents and grandparents said “Go!” I am off to a flying start and I must not halt in the stretch to look behind and long for more. The boastfulness of others is the price I paid for beginning the adventures of travel. It is a bully adventure and worth all that I have paid through tiresome conversations for it. No one on earth will ever have the same experiences. The world to be seen and nothing to be missed. It is thrilling to think- to know that for any trip of mine, I will get twice as much joy or twice as much disappointment. It is quite exciting to be in the patron of a world class restaurant, with the chef not knowing whether to add butter or garlic.

The position of the non traveler is much more difficult. No traveling specter flies along beside me when I decide not to go somewhere. No adventurous ghost leans against me on a long flight. The game of staying where one lives is never as exciting as the game of going somewhere new.

I do not always feel like traveling. Every so often I feel like the old Nick, before South Africa. I don't feel adventurous when I am relaxing at home, after a long trip.

For instance, at family reunions. In the midst of non-travelers, I remember my travels. Among people who never leave home, I am a bird flying above, not noticed by the people below. I am gusted and blown, but through it all, I remain myself. When flying high in the air, I am; and the wind but lowers by again.

Sometimes it is the other way around. A non-traveler ventures internationally, but the contrast is just as sharp for me. For instance, when I traveled to ancient ruins of Greece with a non-traveler, my show. We climb the Acropolis discussing the beautiful landscaping and are directed by tour guides. In the overwhelming effect that ancient wonders have, this one recreates an amazing aura. It loses no time with minutiae, but gives an overall impression of awe. It stuns the mind and astounds the senses with its statues and golden ratios. This temple glows with wonderment, standing on its many columns and intensifies the mountain's simple beauty with its natural magnificence, intensifying it, enhancing it until it shines through to the city beyond. I wonder contemplatively inside; I gape, I muse. My thoughts are peaceful like a drifting river. I want to share something- create ideas, make plans for what, I do not know. But the initial awe ends. The columns of the wonder return to their functionary positions and add no more than before. I slowly return to my mind as the initial effect ends, and find my non-traveler friend just looking around, looking blank.

“Interesting architecture up here,” he says, taking a photo or two.

Architecture! The great wonders of Ancient Greece and the world have not affected him. He has only seen what I have experienced. He is at the bottom of the mountain and I see him as an ant down at the bottom of the mountain. He is so distant with his hatred of travel and I am so fond.

At certain times I have no preferences. I am me. When I stay at home one day, feeling relaxed in front of the T.V., I am me. So far as my experiences are concerned, Amelia Earhart, with her transatlantic flights, pioneering spirit, love of travel, has nothing on me. The cosmic Nick emerges. I belong to no preference.

I have no separate feeling about being a travel and a relaxer. I am merely a fragment of the Great Soul that surges within the boundaries. My world, right or wrong.

Sometimes, I feel ignored, but it does not make me annoyed. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company! It's beyond me.

But usually, I feel like a single member of a vast herd of animals on the savannah. Against the plains, with other species, zebras, antelope and giraffe. Take each animal alone, and there is discovered a plethora of different experiences exciting and boring. A first trip to the water hole, the taste of grass, long naps, running from predators, the thrill gleaned from running into a new place, the pain of flies, the struggle for supremacy, a broken hoof caused by a small pebble stabbed up the foot. In the land is the single animal. On the plains before you is the agglomeration they know- so much like the individuality they each have, could they be different, that all might join together in their experiences for the common good. A couple more runs one way or the other would not matter. Perhaps that is how the Great Determiner of Herds designed them in the first place- who knows?