I love maps, Kayak and Buster– the guy who thought the blue on the map was land

After spending twenty-two years of my life on the stereotype-conducive Island east of Manhattan, there is no denying that I am a New Yorker through and through. My nostalgia for the boroughs mark my love for the City, but my affection towards its countless aggravations make it home: the loud and jaywalked streets, humid and trash-heap corners and skyscraper-made winter wind tunnels that leave you in tears.

I said goodbye to New York last July and don’t plan on coming back for quite some time; I miss it. But, like Pitchfork in Chicago, the meadows in Lithuania, the highway through the Rockies, the retreat house just south of the Honduran border, our picture on the Thames, the ferry under the Harbor Bridge, the professional baseball stadiums (all 10 of them), the bleacher-less baseball fields and the Restaurant in Naju, I’m able to find a piece of home everywhere I go, if I’m looking for the right things.

This winter I plan on traveling to Southeast Asia, namely Cambodia and Thailand, to visit two of my closest friends from college. Despite never having been to either country before and inevitably spending a lot of time on tropical beaches, the sight of my friends will surely usher in New York City winds and that hometown feel. Let’s go.