I knew I was onto something when I learned that I needed to be vaccinated for Japanese Encephalitis before going to Southeast Asia. Hepatitis A & B vaccines didn’t hold a candle to how foreign and fabulous Japanese Encephalitis sounded. Maybe it was the inordinate number of syllables in the name or the fact that it was named after a mysterious country that made it sound so extraordinary and well, exotic. Let’s face it – Missouri Encephalitis doesn’t have quite the same ring. Or maybe it was the fact that the vaccine was so rare that Fort Lauderdale’s health clinic didn’t carry it and I was forced to go to a private facility that specialized in travel vaccines … and pay a whopping $600 for it!

Apparently my friends deemed the JE vaccine equally extraordinary because one began claiming that he was also being vaccinated for JE for his upcoming trip to Iraq. For travel to Iraq, the CDC suggests receiving yellow fever and typhoid vaccinations and the use of malaria pills for certain areas – all of which are admittedly creepy things to take into your body – but JE was not on the CDC list for Iraq. I held the exotic trump card … and my friend knew it.

This meant I was definitely on the right track. This place was exotic by anyone’s definition. I’d narrowed my first stop down to a place where the main road through town was called Monkey Forest Road. No doubt about it. I had found what I was looking for. Ubud, Bali and Southeast Asia were calling my name. I had no trouble understanding them through the funny accent. “I’m coming! I’m coming!” I shouted across the oceans. I’m sure my accent sounded equally funny to them but they understood me too.

In the fall of my senior year in college, I sat talking to Victoria who lived down the hall in our shared dormitory. Her mother had just taken her on a month-long safari in Africa. You know – the colonial throwback kind where African porters schlep in a bunch of stuff that really shouldn’t be schlepped to the outback … luxurious Persian rugs coddling teak dining room tables which are groaning under the weight of seven courses worth of priceless china. Who needs all that to go see lions, tigers and elephants? But oh my! While the feeling of modern-day colonialism twisted my stomach, I must admit that I also basked in the exoticism of it all. I was hooked.

For the next 15 years, while I endured my time in the dungeons of law firms and courtrooms, I devoured movies and books set in exotic places around the globe. These were the IV that kept my nomadic spirit alive until I was ready to launch my own journey … to Southeast Asia.