Mark Kennedy
Chattanooga Times Free Press
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) — Becca Hisamoto, 28, first experienced wanderlust nearly a decade ago while attending college at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. pain of.
Hisamoto now lives in Chattanooga and took two college courses while studying abroad during a summer in London, Paris and Rome. As part of her degree in event planning, she participated in fairs and festivals across Europe.
“It didn’t feel like school,” she recalls of a trip abroad in 2013. Hisamoto spoke with the Chattanooga Times Free Press by phone. “I’ve always loved travelling, but after going abroad I knew: I was hooked and needed to find a career in the travel industry.”
Fast forward nine years, and Jiumoto has done just that. She is a travel coordinator for a company called Exceptional Vacations, which plans domestic travel for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Meanwhile, she’s honed her personal travel planning skills to the point where she’s about to complete a serious bucket list project. She is about to join the Seven Continents Club before she turns thirty.
Hisamoto says she’s not a wealthy person, but she has learned how to travel through work exchanges, allowing her to earn room and board, for example, in exchange for a job as an English teacher, gardener or childcare worker. So far, she has checked out six continents and plans to travel to Antarctica in November.
“When I first got a taste of (travel), I wanted to see everything,” she said. “Over time, I thought, ‘I can travel all seven continents.’ Then, to make it even more challenging, I set a goal to travel all continents by my 30th birthday.”
Hisamoto said she and a friend will fly to the southern tip of Argentina, where she will take a 10-day trip to Antarctica through the Drake Passage, which runs between South America and the southernmost continent, to Known for its windy and rugged oceans.
“Out of the 10 days, we’ll spend two days crossing the Drake Passage. We’ll live on boats and take Zodiacs (inflatable boats used to transport passengers to land). Hopefully we’ll be in Antarctica for four days .
“It’s incredibly exciting,” Kumoto said. “It’s a dream of mine.”
Hisamoto said she decided in her 20s to give her all to traveling the world while she was still young. World travel, she says, is a mindset, a way of finding context in a changing world.
“I hope travel will always be part of my purpose in life,” she said. “I don’t want to wait until I grow up or retire.
“I’m young and healthy, but as I get older I think I’ll still travel, albeit probably not to this extent.”
After Antarctica, Jiumoto plans to travel to China and the Middle East next year.
Likewise, she added a goal to her bucket list. Her next challenge is to visit the Seven Wonders of the World.
“I’ve checked four,” she said enthusiastically.
