Trekking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, riding a camel in the Sahara Desert, gazing at the Northern Lights in Iceland, bathing elephants in Thailand, hiking volcanoes in Guatemala, volunteering in Tanzania…these are things that could not have possibly existed in my wildest dreams as a child or adolescent, but are now among my most treasured memories.

Coming from a broken home and living in a small upstate New York town had its challenges.  My world was very small; almost no one ever left my hometown. I was determined to get out and never look back so I set myself on the path to college and the great unknown. In college, curiosity about the world started to get the best of me and I wondered what it would be like to see, touch, and experience certain things that only lived in the movies. At SUNY Brockport, I was lucky enough to have pioneered the Student Teaching in Australia Study Abroad Program. I spent four months on the other side of the world, experiencing another culture and seeing sights I had only read about in books and magazines. I was having the time of my life but still wasn’t prepared for the awe and exhilaration I felt when I saw kangaroos in the wild for the first time. That was a truly transformative experience for me and became the watershed moment when my dreams and fantasies became my life-long passion to travel.

Every place I journey to enriches my life, teaches me something about myself, and reminds me of the importance of stepping out of my busy routine to appreciate the world’s beauty and simplicity. To date, I have visited 35 countries spanning six continents. I would love to see the entire world, but I understand that life may not allow me to do so. I try my best to prioritize trips based on physical demands (i.e. hiking the Himalayas to Everest base camp will only get harder as I get older) and personal interests (i.e. I have to get to all seven continents). But, even with those priorities, I can become overwhelmed by all the travel possibilities! I remain determined in my desire to explore all that this world has to offer, and continue to ask myself the exhilarating question, where am I going next?

Elizabeth Livorsi

Math Teacher

Spry Middle School

I truly admire Liz as she has made world travel a priority in her life. I got so excited for her as we talked about where she's been, her upcoming trip and the dreams of future ones. I have no doubt that, regardless of our limits on travel right now, she will continue to fulfill her dream and make it a reality as she has already done so many times. 

Thanks for visiting my blog, for your wonderful comments to my participants and to me about their stories and about this project. Part two may be done, but I'm by no means done creating and I look forward to sharing the next round of stories with you in the future. Make sure to leave Liz a comment or two!

Family is such a key component in everyone’s lives. It is even a concept we cover as a central theme in our World Language Classrooms. When I ask my students to define the concept of family they almost always start off with the most basic definition of family being a group of people connected by blood that support and nurture each other to grow. But family is so much more. We have the family we are born into that gives us a central part of our identity, but we also have the family we choose in our spouses and our friends that support us and nurture us to grow. I am so blessed to have the family I live with- my husband Mike, my daughter Josie, and my son Zeke. I am equally blessed to have my work family that I fell into 16 years ago when I came to work at Webster Schroeder High School. Both are filled with passionate, smart, creative people who always have my back, support me, challenged me, and continue to push me to be a better person, and for that I am grateful and blessed.  

Leslie Hall

Foreign Language Teacher

Webster Schroeder High School

What a wonderful sentiment and so true for so many of us! I can't thank Leslie and her families enough for participating in this project. Such a coincidence that she's my neighbor through the woods!! Please feel free to leave a comment for Leslie and, as always, thank you for visiting the blog.