Travel

The town of Skagway is nestled on the shore of the Pacific Ocean in southwestern Alaska. It is situated at the northern end of Alaska’s Inside Passage, a busy shipping lane dotted with tiny, often uninhabited isles and rimmed by countless blue-white glaciers. In 1897, gold was discovered in the Klondike region, and soon thousands of prospectors flocked to Skagway. It became a bustling mining town, complete with its own railway, port, and brand of Old West lawlessness.

The summer after my freshman year of high school, I spent three weeks at the Cambridge College Program, an opportunity for high school students around the globe to live at Cambridge University and take classes from Cambridge professors. I took two courses, one in astrophysics and one in debate. The courses were fascinating, and both of my professors were extremely knowledgeable, gifted teachers. But in addition to taking these classes, I was looking forward to the opportunity to explore Europe, a continent I had never seen before.

During junior high school I was lucky enough to find a program through my school that took a group of students on an ecotour of Costa Rica for twelve days during the summer. I begged my parents to let me go the summer after my sixth grade year. They refused, but agreed to let me go the next year if I raised half of the money myself. During seventh grade, I worked to raise the money and eagerly anticipated my departure to Central America.