Jillian’s August 1 Post: Life-Changing Travel, a Reader’s Story

How will you change your life through travel this summer?
Here’s one reader’s story, which I love.

Jillian,

I thought I owed it to you to let you know how [your] book had affected my decision to go.

A few months ago a pen pal in Columbia (Barranquilla) was Instant Messaging me and was telling me about her boyfriend from Chicago. She said she had always thought I was a good man and wanted introduce me to a friend of hers named Johana. Innocently enough I agreed because I love to chat with friends from around the world and I was happy to have a new contact. I emailed her and she responded to my emails faithfully. Over time we shared a lot of letters back and forth explaining of our lives and desires for them. It turns out we have many things in common but English is not one of those things. I use a translation software for most of my letters but she speaks some English so we had some challenges but for some reason the communications never slowed down. In fact, we decided to IM each other with greater frequency. After a few weeks we were chatting every night, with and without webcams. I guess by now your starting to see where this is going. About two months ago I started studying Spanish because I was so infatuated and intrigued by Johana and the culture of Latin America. Her values, morals and beautiful personality captivated me. Although I tried to keep it in perspective I could not, and still can not, stop thinking about her. I decided to go to her.

I have much anxiety and fear for this trip but I have embraced it and learned many things about myself in the process. I am so excited to take this leap of faith I can barely sleep. I will send you more news soon. I look forward to Changing My Life Through Travel.

Regards,

Chuck

Stay tuned for a future update on Chuck’s trip to Columbia.