Reason #28 we should go to Thailand: We're educated, and that makes all the difference

As we've mentioned about 100 times on this blog so far, Theo and I are graduate students. And we're not talking about two-year professional program graduate students. Theo and I have spent most of our lives and more than our incomes pursuing advanced degrees; we have made long-term commitments to academia. I have a bachelor's degree from Albion College, a master's from Ball State University, and I'm finishing up my PhD at the University of Illinois. Theo has both a bachelor's and a master's degree from Ball State, and is working on a second master's at Northern Illinois University in preparation for a PhD.

Some might see all of this time spent in universities in the Midwest as a bad thing; we haven't been out to "experience the real world." Yet our time spent in school has provided us with opportunities many others don't have. (And I'm not talking about the "meet new people and have fun" kinds of typical college experiences.) Theo and I have had the opportunity to develop our academic and creative talents in a variety of ways, from performing on stage to planning lecture series; we've been exposed to new ways of thinking from world-class professors; and we've even published some ideas of our own. Our academic experiences have given us an open minded view of the world; we're always ready for the next adventure and the next challenge.

Our studies have also physically taken us beyond the boundaries of campus. We both had the opportunity to study abroad as students, taking advantage of our universities' connections with institutions all over the world. We've already written a great deal about those experiences on this blog, from my studies in Spain and Ireland, to Theo's in Japan, Korea, China, and Germany. On these trips we were not just tourists but students. Our universities placed us with host families, and we were given the opportunity to experience life from the local point of view. As students, we approached each new destination with an eye for adventure, but also an appreciation for history and culture that we would take with us back to the States. What better way to study Irish poetry than from Yeats' tower, or to study art history by exploring 600 year old palaces in Spain? Studying abroad taught us to bring the skills we had learned in the classroom to our other experiences; each day gave us the opportunity to learn something new.

Because of our study abroad experiences, we've always seen travel as not only an opportunity to have fun and relax, but an opportunity to learn. We learn as much as we can about the history and culture of a place before our visit, and we plan our sightseeing adventures with an eye toward the historical especially. As teachers, we also know how to take the information we've learned and present it to others in a manner that's engaging and entertaining. Given the opportunity to promote from Chiang Mai, Thailand, we would show our audience much more than a typical vacation. We would make sure you learned as much as we did.