about

Hi, I’m Trinh.

(See below.) I like to travel. (Also see below.)

Travel should be treated as a basic human right, but it’s a privilege for most people today. Migration is one of the most natural parts of life—earth became populated as people moved due to climate, for work, and for adventure. Artificial borders, cost of travel, and xenophobia are some of many reasons why people are unable to travel. I started this blog as a way to express all I feel and think about movement and migration. If you’re reading, I hope I’m able to give insight and advice for your journeys, near and far.

My Travel Story

Born in Vietnam, my family and I immigrated to the U.S. in 1995 as refugees; my father was a political prisoner for eight years in Vietnam. We moved up and down the Pacific coast as my parents searched for work before settling down in Sonoma County.

Santa Rosa, mid-1990s

Every other summer, we’d go back to Vietnam for 2 months to visit my grandmothers and extended family. My father, a furniture truck driver, drove up and down the coast for years and my parents took us on long weekends around the West. I recently learned that my parents had dreams of longer, farther travels for themselves, but were waiting until my brothers and I went to college.

My father died in the spring of 2011. The fall before, he urged me to study abroad. We went over the pros and cons of different academic programs before he (very surprisingly) told me that education was just not in the classroom and was about life experiences. I should pick whatever sounded fun. I almost didn’t submit my study abroad application, due a week after his death. My mother urged me to do it.

I spent the one year remembrance of his death in Spain. Living in Córdoba and breathing the Andalucían way of life was my therapy. It felt like the best way to honor him and the life my parents wanted for their children. I wore out three pairs of shoes that spring and summer in Europe, and I haven’t stopped since.

Dubrovnik, 2015. Photo by Lyndsey Bohlender.