Wanderlust [wandərlʌst] – noun; A strong, innate desire to rove or travel about.

I’ve never been one to be too sappy about my heritage. Don’t get me wrong, I am proud of my background; my mother’s side of the family came from Germany while my father’s side is a mixture of Western European backgrounds, including Italian, Scottish, and Irish. However, being a third-generation American, I tend to define myself as simply a citizen of the United States. That being said, this word upon which I have based my blog comes from my European heritage and it immediately spoke to me. Wanderlust is a word that has been borrowed directly from the German Wanderlust, which means literally “wander desire.” When I first heard and understood it, I felt as though I had found a piece of the puzzle of my soul that had been missing for a long time.

You see, I could not think of a better way to describe how a girl raised in a southern Arizona metropolitan area would wind up nestled in the middle of the West Virginia hills than wanderlust. Arizona, while being the place I grew up, was never a place that I intended to stay. Growing up, I dreamed of traveling the globe. I traveled to countless landmarks, museums, and national parks, most often during the middle of my summer vacation in the backseat of my parents’ minivan. My mom and I made the pilgrimage to her small hometown of South Haven right along the coast of Lake Michigan every summer. By the time I reached the age of eighteen, I had already visited 23 of the 50 states, along with the District of Columbia, Victoria Island in Canada, and even stuck my toes across the border of Mexico.

Still, I wanted more. I wanted to see Seattle, New Orleans, Nashville, and New York City. I wanted to eat a lobster roll in Maine and see a sea turtle nest on the North Carolina dunes. I was itching to travel all across Europe and Asia – by boat, train, double-decker bus, subway, Chunnel, or even by foot. I dreamed of seeing Dublin, London, Paris, Pompeii, Amsterdam, Prague, Berlin, Athens, Moscow, Tokyo, and so many more. I longed to see the koala bears and kangaroos my parents told me stories about from the years they spent in Australia. I wanted to see it all and do it all, and I couldn’t see it or do it fast enough.

However, as the phrase goes, life happens. I never made it to Europe or Asia or Australia. I never got to feel the dense waters of the Black Sea or taste exotic cuisines. But my wanderlust has not been extinguished. Instead, I found the arrow of my compass pointing me in a different direction.

My journey to West Virginia (or, as I affectionately call it, my journey home) began when I visited for a week in 2009. My best friend was getting married, and she and her fiancé chose to be wed in his home county near where they would settle down together. It was the week leading up to Labor Day, and I don’t think I had ever seen so much green before in my life. I remember thinking to myself that only the rolling hills of Ireland could be a more perfect emerald hue than the holler I had found myself in. Immediately, I felt at home. The wind rustling through the trees, the babbling of the creek, the chirping of the birds and the frogs and the crickets formed a hypnotic melody, one that ensnared my heart and stayed with me for years afterward.

Fast forward to New Year’s Day, 2012. As life had continued to happen over that two and a half year period, Arizona had become even less of a home to me, and I found myself filled with a desire to leave the desert behind me for a while. On that snowy New Year’s Day, I arrived at Yeager Airport in Charleston, not sure what I expected to find but sure that I wouldn’t find it anywhere else. I spent two weeks in the holler my best friend and her husband lived in, and even though the winter scenery was a stark contrast to what I remembered, the feeling of belonging there among the mountains and the trees was exactly as I’d remembered it. I resolved then and there that I would find my way back to that place again; by that June, I had made West Virginia my home.

So why would I call this blog “West Virginia Wanderlust” if the mountain state is now my home? The answer is really quite simple – I still have that desire to rove and travel about. Despite being a resident for nearly three years, there are so many things I have yet to see right here in my own backyard. I, like so many others, still have much to learn about this beautiful place and the people who call it home. I plan to travel all over these mountains, learning about the land, the history, and the culture, and I hope that you will join me on the journey.