The Spark

I was working at 145 S. Wells Street in Chicago, in my first role ever as a corporate weapon, for a company that made some of North America's most prominent ready-to-drink brands. As a twenty-two-year-old fraternal college student approaching his all-important senior year, I felt like the man. It's a feeling shaped mostly by what society labels as "success" at that age, but I was succeeding in my own right, in the sense that I enjoyed waking up every day and going to that office.

I embraced everything that summer, had my share of fun, and was always eager to talk about my newfound success. I also did my best to keep a steady mind on what my future looked like, which is a genuinely difficult thing to do. What was I going to do about housing for my final semester? Was I built for office life? Would I still enjoy data analysis twenty years from now? What about my passions?

One question stuck to my soul day after day, not fleeting like the rest: the desire to travel. The desire to experience the world we were gifted in its purest form. As the summer went on, I set my sights on a graduation present to myself for the following spring — a backpacking trip somewhere extraordinary.

My list had a few options, and I discarded them one by one. First was the Balkans — the coastline of Croatia, the mountains of Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the cities of Tirana, Sarajevo, Belgrade, Dubrovnik, Skopje. But it was winter there, so I let that dream simmer for another time. Next was Ecuador and Peru, hiking through the Andes — great trip, but not long enough for what I was looking for, so I shelved that too, for somewhere down the road.

That's when I started researching Southeast Asia. By July I had my airfare prepped: a flight into Hanoi, Vietnam on January 15th, 2025, and a flight out of Singapore on March 3rd, 2025. The rest, I decided, was to be determined.