Excerpts from Nicole Depender’s winning essay for the Independent Travel portion of the 2014 Building A Better World Scholarship. Go here for Nicole’s Global Awareness essay. 2014 BBW Winners.
Thoughts on Travel – “Taking the time to travel, will open your eyes to parts of the world you had no idea even existed. You experience feelings and emotions you never knew you had. You take in the feel of what it was like for someone of past generations, or even present, to live in such places. Travel does things to you that you didn’t know were even possible. That’s the thing about traveling though – you get to see the world while you are becoming awake to different phenomena.”
The Grand Canyon – “Ever since I was young, I had a fascination with traveling. Seeing places that are historic in nature, or are even nature itself, has been something that I have always wanted to experience… For this scholarship I will travel to the Grand Canyon. I might also travel up into Colorado so that I can see various parts of the Grand Canyon. In Colorado, I would be able to stay with my cousin who lives near the Colorado/Arizona border. I know how vast the Grand Canyon is, and I want to see as much of it as possible. While on this trip, I want to meet people and see what draws them to the Grand Canyon. I want to understand why other people are fascinated with this place, just as I am.”
My Grandpa – “When I was younger, I made plans with my grandpa to travel to the Grand Canyon someday when I got old enough. However, two years ago he was diagnosed with bladder cancer which quickly spread and took his life last year. Since I am not able to fulfill these plans with him, I would still like to take this trip in memory of him.”
My Plan – “I would take this trip around June 28 since this is the day that my grandpa passed away. I would like to stay there for roughly a week and a half. I would be traveling alone, since my original plans were to be just my grandpa and myself. The reason we picked to go to the Grand Canyon in the first place was so that we could see the beauty of God’s creations in its natural state. The world doesn’t need to have human modified nature in order to look good. To be able to have the chance to travel to a place like this (to me) is a once in a life time opportunity. I love traveling, but traveling takes money, which I don’t have a lot of. I want to see the world, and to go on this trip is something that would mean the absolute world to me.”
Nicole and her grandfather.
