Can I get a ticket on the longest flight you have available?

I need to go on vacation.

Yes, I know I just had a week off work. That's not what I mean. I mean, a real vacation. The kind where you use all your vacation at once, where your employees and your boss couldn't get a hold of you no matter how hard they tried, where you have to get on at least one airplane. The kind where you have to take your passport with you and your cell phone doesn't work. The kind where the time zone changes or you lose a whole day in the sky crossing the date line, where you don't speak the language, where you have to pack every single touristy thing into that one vacation because it cost you so much to fly there, you know you'll never be back.

I need Australia, Part Two.

But not Australia. Somewhere new.

I need Germany. Or France. Or Greece or Italy. Or England or Ireland or the Bahamas. I need an ocean between me and my house. I need a stamp in my passport, a backpack instead of a suitcase, a dingy hostel and a guidebook. Fuck, I NEED another life-changing travel experience.

I need Jenny Collins to be reading this post.

I have not left the country since 2006. Unacceptable! On December 20, 2006 we were in Australia, about halfway through a 4 week trip. We had already snorkeled in the Great Barrier Reef, went skydiving on a beach, and gotten sun burns to rival all other sun burns. We were having the best time ever. I miss that. I miss the adventure.

The question is, where to go from here?

2014 is shaping up to be one of those years where I do nothing but save money in hoards to spend on vacations. Where I work two jobs and keep tips from the serving one in a jar under my bed, where I count down the days to flights. Australia happened 7 years ago. I was only, what, 23? I was still in college, making minimum wage, working 30 hours a week...and I made it happen. I now earn more than double what I made then, I work full time, and I am much more responsible than I was at 23. There is nothing to stop me.

Goodbye America, I will be...well, somewhere else.