Casting off for an extended voyage is a paradigm shift in the experience of usual, brief sojourns. I cherish the basics: Having only beginning and end points to a trip. The freedom to think of time as a minor, abstract detail — able to move in any direction, to capitalize on any moment. Spontaneity. Serendipity. Experience. As for so many travelers, these themes have become my very definition of escape.
Walking just the distance of a few gates in Detroit’s McNamara Terminal, our global connectivity laid bare. Cleveland, Seoul, Amsterdam, Sault Sainte Marie. A few steps but a window to the world. It never stops seeming cool to me. And as a global health practitioner, in the coolness are challenges.