Summary

Jasmine Smith, a writer and stay-at-home mom from Northern Wisconsin, shares her passion for travel, particularly emphasizing her love for food as a gateway to understanding cultures, with a special fondness for Hungary and a dream to visit Mongolia.

Abstract

Jasmine Smith, featured in the Writer Spotlight, reveals her evolution from viewing travel as a status symbol to embracing it as a source of joy and knowledge. She highlights her love for culinary experiences, considering them a primary activity when exploring new places, and expresses a deep connection with Hungary. Having lived in San Francisco for 16 years, Jasmine balances her writing career with motherhood, advocating for the enrichment of her child's life through travel. She offers practical advice for traveling with children and maintains a philosophy that travel broadens perspective and teaches adaptability. Despite an old back injury that once hindered her from joining the Peace Corps in Mongolia, Jasmine continues to dream of visiting the country. Her travel ethos includes meticulous food planning and embracing the unexpected, all while keeping her family's needs in focus.

Opinions

Travel is less about appearing sophisticated and more about personal joy and learning.
Eating local food is the best way to understand a new place, even in countries where the cuisine may not be renowned.
Hungary stands out as a place where Jasmine felt an immediate sense of belonging and comfort.
Traveling by train is a preferred mode of transportation, with future plans to experience Japan's Shinkansen with her son.
Three key lessons from traveling are to accept what cannot be changed, to always plan for good food, and to maintain perspective on one's place in the world.
Jasmine values National Parks and local farmers' markets as part of her travel and leisure activities.
She believes in the importance of food planning when traveling, especially with a child, to avoid disappointing meals.
Jasmine's past experience with the Peace Corps, which was cut short due to a back injury, has not diminished her desire to explore remote places like Mongolia.

Writer Spotlight — Jasmine Smith

Somewhere in Romania, I think. Eating, as usual. (Photo by Jasmine Ann Smith)

Hi Globetrotters. My name is…Jasmine

I love to travel because…I used to think it made me special, honestly. I grew up in a rural area with very little money. I didn’t know anyone who traveled farther than the next state over. I went to Europe without my parents when I was 16, and I was sure it would make me seem sophisticated and interesting.

But the more I traveled, the less it mattered how it looked to everyone else. Now it brings me joy and satisfies my curious mind. The more I learn, the more I realize there is to learn. And frankly, it doesn’t NOT make you sophisticated and interesting…

My number one travel activity is…eating. Is there any better way to get to know a place? Even somewhere where a lot of the food isn’t great (I’m looking at you England and Belgium), it tells you a lot about the people and their life. I squee out loud when I find a surprise farmers’ market.

I come from…Northern Wisconsin (in the U.S.), but I’ve lived in San Francisco, California for the past 16 years, almost as long as I lived in my birthplace. I left there when I was 18 but since I remember nothing about the first 4 years, I don’t think they should count, do you?

I work as a…writer and stay-at-home mom.

The best place I’ve been is…Hungary. Have you ever left a place and not only could you not wait to go back but you felt sort of homesick when you thought about it? That’s Hungary for me. I was so comfortable there so quickly. Budapest is an amazing, chill, delicious city. I spent just four days in the Tokai region and felt like family to some of the winemakers there.

Mendocino Headlands State Park (Photo by Jasmine Ann Smith)

In my spare time, I like to…write (preferably in a coffee shop), read (I am a lifelong reader of anything I can get my hands on), and drag my kid to National Parks (get your shoes on…it’s good for you).

My top travel tip is… most of my travel tips these days revolve around how to do it with a young kid:

Easy Ways to Entertain Your Kid on a Four-Hour Layover

Don’t be fooled. It’s never easy

medium.com

If I could live somewhere else, I’d live in…I am in the process of moving across the country to be closer to family, so the idea of living anywhere else sounds impossible to me. Maybe if teleportation were invented? Budapest.

Or Mongolia, which I’ve never actually visited. It’s sort of my white whale. After college, I applied to the Peace Corps to teach English in Mongolia. I picked it because it was the most exotic-sounding place that wasn’t also hot as hell. At the last minute, I was turned down due to an old back injury. I still haven’t made it there.

My favorite way to travel is…train. I can’t wait to get my train-obsessed son onto the Shinkansen in Japan, among others.

Three lessons I’ve learned from traveling are…

It is what it is. I spent a lot of time stressing over things out of my control (or only marginally within my control) like train connections and always having the best of something or getting upset because a certain museum closed on the one day I was there. “It is what it is” became my positive mantra. To me it just means: this is happening, or not. Deal and move on.
Always plan your food. Look, overplanning can be a problem, but winging it with food is never an option for me. Food near touristy things can be super crappy. Food near non-touristy things can be super crappy. Yes, you might happen upon a gem, but 9 times out of 10 you are missing out. My husband and I laugh (now) about the time we were in Italy, I was beyond starving, and every single restaurant was closed for the afternoon. We laugh now, but he claims he thought I was going to leave him right then and there.

This becomes doubly important when you have a kid along. Snacks are king. Bonus points if those snacks came from a local farmers’ market.

My life is such a teensy, tiny part of this world. So many of my so-called problems seem insignificant after a trip outside my comfort zone. I’m still occasionally shocked by things — cities that I’ve never heard of that have MILLIONS of residents, animals I didn’t know even existed, languages I’ve never heard spoken. It really brings perspective when I get worked up that my check engine light has come on AGAIN. That just means it’s time to book some tickets!

Dying for more details of my life?

About Me — Jasmine Smith

From the middle to east to west and back again

medium.com