I Grew Up Thinking America Was Just Normal. Travel Proved Me Wrong.
I used to think the way I grew up was just… the way things were. Not good. Not bad. Just normal. And I had no idea I was wrong until I left the country.
My mom and I have visited over 20 countries across 5 continents on my school breaks. We are not rich. We did not go into debt. My mom figured out how to make it work on a regular income, and I’ve been watching her do it for almost a decade.
One of the biggest things travel gave me — that I did not see coming — was the ability to compare. Because when you’ve only ever seen one way of doing something, you don’t even realize it’s a choice. You just think it’s reality. That’s what this is about.
The First Time My Assumptions Got Challenged
When I was younger, I assumed the way we did things in America was standard. The way stores are laid out. Whether strangers make eye contact on the street. How loud a restaurant is. What counts as a normal portion of food. What counts as a normal-sized house. I thought all of that was just universal.
The first time that got challenged was Dublin. We got off the plane and I saw cars driving on the other side of the road. It was a small thing. But it hit me in a weird way — because I already knew about it before we got there. I’d read it. I understood it logically. But actually seeing it — standing on the sidewalk watching it happen — was different.
It was evidence. Evidence that the things I took for granted didn’t have to be the way they were. Someone decided this is how roads work here. And it works. And it’s different. And both things are fine. That was the beginning of something I didn’t even have a name for yet.
You Don’t Come Back Changed Because of One Big Moment
You come back changed because you now have something to compare against. Before I traveled, I didn’t have a reference point. So I couldn’t even ask the question — is this the only way? I just assumed yes, because it was all I’d seen.
After traveling — even just a little — I started seeing things differently. Not better or worse. Just with more information.
Like the pace of life. In some places we visited, people eat slowly. Nobody is rushing. You sit down, the whole meal takes two hours, and nobody looks at their phone every three minutes. In America, I feel like there’s this constant pressure to be efficient. To move fast. I’d never questioned it before, because it was all I knew. But once I had something to compare to — I couldn’t unsee it.
Three Things Travel Showed Me About Home
In a lot of countries, food is local almost by default. You eat what grows nearby, what’s in season, what was made that morning. In some places we visited, the market is just how it’s done — not a backup option. In America, I can get strawberries in December. I can get a mango in Ohio. I had never once thought about how unusual that is until I saw what it looks like when food doesn’t work that way.
Americans have a lot of it. Big houses, big cars, big portions. And then you go somewhere with tiny apartments and tiny streets — and everyone seems fine. More than fine, actually. People are outside. They’re walking. They’re around each other. And you think — what does all the space actually give us?
In some places, being fifteen minutes late isn’t even considered late. Plans are flexible. Schedules are loose. People don’t seem stressed about it. I’m not saying one way is better. I’m just saying I couldn’t even notice it before I had something to compare it to.
One Data Point Is Not Enough to Make a Good Decision
If you’ve only ever seen one way of living — one set of assumptions about how money works, how time works, how success looks — you can’t question it. You don’t even know it’s a choice. That’s not your fault. That’s just how it is when you only have one data point.
Travel gives you more data points. People talk about travel like it’s about seeing beautiful places. And it is. But it’s also about what happens when you come back. You come back slightly different — not because you changed, but because you finally have something to compare.
My mom didn’t just want to take me to other countries to check boxes. She wanted me to see that the way we live is a choice. That other ways exist, and they work, and they’re real. And once you see that — it gives you something that’s hard to get any other way. Options. In your head. Before you even make a decision about anything.
Awareness Is in the Name for a Reason
This is actually at the core of what F.A.T.E. is — Financial Awareness Travel Early. The word awareness is in there on purpose. Because you can’t make good decisions about something you’ve never questioned.
If you think the way most people handle money is just normal — if you’ve only ever seen one model — you’re going to follow that model without thinking about it. And one day you’ll look up and wonder where everything went.
My mom didn’t just teach me to track spending and look for flight deals. She taught me to question what I assumed was just the way things are. To ask if there’s another way. Those are different questions. And asking the second one changes things.
The E in F.A.T.E. stands for Early. And I think about that differently now than I did before we started traveling. Early isn’t just about starting to invest sooner. It’s about getting more data points sooner. The earlier you see that your normal isn’t everyone’s normal — that choices are choices, not just the way things are — the more time you have to make decisions with that understanding. That’s compounding in a completely different sense. And it started, for me, on a sidewalk in Dublin watching cars drive on the wrong side of the road.
We’ve traveled to 20 countries across 5 continents on school breaks — the same breaks every student already has. We didn’t need a special budget or a special situation. We needed a system and a decision to go. Every trip added a data point. Every data point changed something about how I think.
There are videos on this channel about how we afford to travel, how my mom built the financial system behind all of it, and what F.A.T.E. looks like in practice. Start wherever makes sense for you.