Traveling with the Jones

Traveler Interview:  Kathryn Johnson

A junior at Luther College in Decorah Iowa, Kathryn Johnson studies Spanish in hopes of using her language skills in her future career and life. She is actively involved in a student-organized Spanish group called Hola/Enlaces which educates members about the struggles of immigration, and provides opportunities to volunteer teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) classes to a Hispanic population.

Kathryn’s passion for travel blossomed out of her love for foreign language, which led to a curiosity in culture and diversity.  In August, 2015, Kathryn plans to volunteer in France or Morocco before traveling to Spain for a semester-long study abroad experience.  This will be her first experience abroad, and she can’t wait to immerse herself in the culture of Europe.

We wanted to learn more about what fuels Kathryn’s passion to travel. 

The Jones:  What makes you want to travel?

Kathryn:  The idea of meeting new people and experiencing other cultures is what makes me want to travel the world.  There is so much more to see and learn about outside of Northeast Iowa and especially outside of the United States.  I can’t imagine myself not traveling because I believe that the experiences I will have during my travel will be some of the most important ones in my lifetime.  I hope that those experiences will teach me to appreciate the world on a more knowledgeable level.

Have you always enjoyed travel? What contributed to your love of travel?

Kathryn:  Yes, travel has always been one of my favorite things.  When I was little, it was the idea of vacation that made me want to visit new places and have fun.  Now that I’m older, I have realized that the reason I love to travel so much has to do more with the experience and the people I share the experience with.  Being able to look at things from a different perspective than I’m used to also contributes to my love of travel.

What is your favorite destination?  Why?  

Kathryn:  By far, my favorite destination is Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin.  I’ve traveled there numerous times with classmates, friends, or family, and I never get tired of exploring the well-known tourist town because there’s so much to do.

The Wisconsin Dells offers a wide variety of attractions including Mt. Olympus and Noah’s Ark which are huge amusement and water parks.  Visitors can feed the deer and the deer park, go on a historic tour in the Duck Boats, or explore the downtown shopping area, which is my favorite part of The Dells.

You are planning an international travel experience next year as part of your college experience. Why is studying abroad important to you?

Kathryn:  Studying abroad is an amazing opportunity that many students don’t even consider.  After college, many people find that they have commitments that hold them back from traveling whether it is their career, their family, etc.  Being able to study abroad during college is the best way for me to travel and experience new and exciting things because there is nothing holding me back.  It’s something that I don’t take for granted because this amazing opportunity is a way for me to expand my college education in the best way possible.

My favorite quote is, “In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take.”  Studying abroad is important to me because I know if I don’t do it I would be missing out on so many amazing experiences.

What destination has surprised you the most, either good or bad? 

Kathryn:  The first time I traveled to Arizona with my family, I wasn’t very excited about the trip. My parents had a vacation home near Phoenix, and my dad wanted to drive there to leave the car there for future visits.  I was not excited for the long drive from Northeast Iowa to Arizona, and since we were visiting in December, we ended up driving through a bad snow storm.

The trip, however, was surprisingly fun.  I love spending time with my family and going to places I’ve never been before.  Once we arrived, I had so much fun there because I was in a new, different place with the people I love.

From your travels, do you have a practice or insight that makes your travel experiences more enjoyable? 

Kathryn:  Planning is one of the most important things a traveler can do before heading out on an adventure, especially if there are specific locations that he or she wants to visit.  It’s important to be prepared.

I always have a list of everything I want to see as well as everything I need to bring.  It’s important to not over pack, but I’m always sure to bring a camera and a journal to capture my experiences so that I can look back on them.

Did you study abroad while you were in college? If so, what was the biggest benefit to your career? To your life? Please share your thoughts in comments below. 

You may want to check out these other travel chats….

• “You can read about other parts of the world, but until you experience it, you don’t truly appreciate what is out there.” – A Travel Chat with an Investment Advisor.
• “In the fall, the vines are turning beautiful shades of orange and gold”;.” A Travel Chat with an Northern California Environmental Consultant
• “If I don’t have my “˜fun on’, I might as well stay home!” A Travel Chat with a Professional Organizer.
• “Spending time in gorgeous settings feeds my soul”;” A Travel Chat with a Kansas City Entrepreneur.

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This post was updated on 4/15/2020. Updates are highlighted in red type.

We called Seattle home for nearly 7 years and loved the view of the Space Needle at sunset from the balcony of our apartment on Westlake Avenue.

In anticipation of an upcoming weekend trip back to Seattle, we thought it would be fun to do a little background research on the city.

Here are 42 Fun Facts about Seattle, Washington:

1. The land that is now the city of Seattle has been inhabited for at least 4,000 years.

2. George Vancouver was the first European to visit Seattle in May 1792 during his 4-year-long expedition to chart the Pacific Northwest.

3. The Denny Party, a group of American pioneers – who left Cherry Grove, Illinois on April 10, 1851 in a westward-bound wagon party — is credited with founding Seattle because they settled at Alki Point on November 13, 1851.

4. Seattle’s first economic growth boom was built on the timber industry. Early arriving developers converted a forest of trees more than 1000 years old and 400 feet high into logs, and then milled timber for shipping to San Francisco.

5. The Klondike gold rush was the greatest boom period for Seattle after gold was discovered in Canada’s Klondike region in August 1896. Seattle established itself as the jumping-off point for transportation to and from Alaska and the gold fields of the Yukon.

6. The Boeing Company, founded in the Seattle area by William Boeing, was originally a boat company. Mr. Boeing was fascinated with flying and airplanes.

7. World War II meant significant growth for Boeing, when the US government suddenly needed tens of thousands of planes a year, making Boeing the largest employer in Seattle.

8. While Boeing closed plants and laid off 70,000 workers after the war, the company soon reinvented itself as the world’s leading producer of commercial passenger planes.

9. During World War II, Seattle was the point of departure for many soldiers sent to the Pacific. Many of these soldiers quartered at Golden Gardens Park.

10. Seattle is the birthplace of Starbucks, the world’s largest coffee chain. You can buy a unique mug (if you collect them) at the original Starbucks in Pike Place Market, first opened in 1971.

11. Smith Tower, a 42-story building constructed in 1914, was once the tallest building west of the Mississippi. Now the top floors are condos.

12. When the Space Needle was built in 1962 for the Seattle World’s Fair, it was the tallest building west of the Mississippi River.

13. In 1959, Edward E. Carlson, then president of Western International Hotels, sketched a vision of the Space Needle on a napkin as a focal point for the futuristic World’s Fair in Seattle, whose theme was the 21st Century.

14. Mr. Carlson’s vision for the space-age tower was inspired by the Stuttgart Tower in Germany.

15. The 520 — the world’s longest floating bridge — connects Seattle and Medina across Lake Washington. Officially the Governor Albert D. Rosellini Bridge at Evergreen Point, the 7,710-foot-long and 116-foot -wide floating span carries traffic on Washington State Route 520 across Lake Washington from Seattle to its eastern suburbs.

16. Medina is the home of the United States’ wealthiest man, Bill Gates, co-founder, and former chairman of Microsoft. Mr. Gates has a net worth of $72 billion, according to the September 2013 Forbes ranking.

17. In 1966, at age 11, Bill Gates won a dinner at the Space Needle restaurant offered by his pastor. Gates won the prize by memorizing the Sermon on the Mount –chapters 5, 6, and 7 of the Gospel of Matthew – and reciting it flawlessly.

18. Seattle is said to be home to the world’s first gas station, opened on Holgate Street and Western Avenue in Seattle in 1907.

19. The 1919 Seattle General Strike was the first general strike in the United States, with 60,000 shipyard workers walking off their jobs.

20. Today Seattle has two downtown cruise terminals and is a major departure port for Alaska and Pacific Northwest cruises.

21. During the 2019 cruise season, Seattle was projected to host 213 cruise ships calls, and more than 1.208 million passengers.

22. Seattle is ranked the most literate city in the country, with the highest percentage of residents with a college degree or higher.

23. The Seattle Public Library system has the highest percentage of library card-holders per capita in the country.

24. Seattle City Light—a public-owned utility which powers 90 percent of Seattle via hydroelectricity—has a zero-carbon footprint. The entire city has pledged to go carbon neutral by 2050.

25. At 76 stories and 937 feet, the black-colored Columbia Center is Seattle’s tallest building and is 12th tallest building in the country. Locals nicknamed it the “Darth Vader” building.

26. As you can witness on the Underground Tour, Seattle was literally built on top of the old city after the Great Fire of 1889.

27. Seattle’s annual rainfall is less than that of Houston, Chicago, and New York City.

28. People in Seattle buy the most sunglasses per capita than any other U.S. city.

29. Bertha Landes, elected 1926, was the first female mayor of Seattle, and of any U.S. city.  After Bertha, all of Seattle’s mayors were male for the next 89 years. On November 7, 2017, Jenny Durkan was elected as mayor of Seattle; she took office on November 28, 2017.

30. Only Murano, an island near Venice, Italy has more glassblowing studios than found in Seattle.

31.  Seattle has the second-highest per capita rate of live music performances in the United States. New York City is first.

32. More people bike to work in Seattle than in any other similar-sized city in the U.S.

33. Seattle’s Pacific Northwest Ballet has the highest per capita ballet attendance in the country.

34. Seattle is the birthplace of Jimi Hendrix while Bing Crosby was born in nearby Tacoma.

35. Seattle was the first city to have police on bicycles.

36. Seattle has nearly 500 houseboats, more than anywhere else in the U.S.

37. The largest man-made island in the U.S. is Seattle’s Harbor Island.

38. Pike Place Market features the longest continuously operating farmer’s market in the US.

39. Kim Basinger, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Julia Roberts all turned down the role of Annie in Sleepless in Seattle  before Meg Ryan got the part.

40. After it was started in Oakland, California, Seattle was home to the second chapter of the Black Panther Party, founded in 1968.

41. The Washington State Ferry System is the largest in the country and the third largest in the world, carrying more than 25 million passengers each year.

42. Seattle’s Pier 52 is the busiest ferry terminal in the United States.

Have you visited Seattle, or do you live there? What “fun fact” can you add to this list? 

Learn more about Seattle with these resources:

Top 10 Seattle
Not For Tourists Guide to Seattle 2017

Seattle Rain or Shine: A Guide to the Usual and Unusual

Other posts on Seattle:

• A Look Inside the Sound Hotel in Seattle, Washington
• Visiting Alaska on a 7-Day Cruise Sailing Round Trip from Seattle
• A Walk Through Seattle’s Olympic Sculpture Park

Check out these other Fun Facts posts:

• 12 Fun Facts About Dutch Harbor, Alaska
• 15 Fun Facts about Cornwall, England
• Visiting Alaska? 22 Fun Facts You Might Want to Know

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Located 250 air miles southwest of Anchorage, the city of Kodiak, Alaska is home to approximately 6,100 residents, and is the main city on Kodiak Island, the United States’ second largest island after Hawaii’s Big Island. Covering 3,588 square miles, Kodiak Island is 73 square miles bigger than Puerto Rico.

You can visit Kodiak by cruise ship, mainly on itineraries that are traveling between the West Coast of the US and Asia via Alaska.

Here are 17 Fun Facts about Kodiak, Alaska:

1. The city of Kodiak, is located on Kodiak Island that is a part of the Kodiak Archipelago in the Gulf of Alaska.

2. The Alutiiq natives have inhabited the Kodiak Archipelago for more than 7,000 years.  In their language, kadiak means “island”.

3. Russian explorer Stephan Glotov discovered the island in 1763, calling it Kad’yak. When James Cook, the British captain arrived fifteen years later, he wrote the name “Kodiak” in his journals.

4. Russian fur trappers prized the area’s vast population of sea otters for their pelts. After significant harvesting, the sea otter was nearly extinct by 1850.

5. When Russia sold Alaska to the United States in 1867, Kodiak became a commercial fishing center which continues today.

6. The Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge was created while Teddy Roosevelt was president.

7. When the U.S. feared attack from Japanese during World War II, the town of Kodiak was turned into a fortress with new roads, an airport and Fort Abercrombie.

8. A tsunami struck the city of Kodiak with 30-foot waves as a result of the massive Alaska Good Friday earthquake on March 27, 1964.  The tsunami killed 15 people, destroyed a number of businesses and fishing fleets, and permanently raised some areas near Kodiak by 30 feet.

9. The Kodiak bear (Ursus arctos middendorffi), also known as the Kodiak brown bear, is a subspecies of the brown or grizzly bear that is only found on Kodiak Island and the other smaller islands in the Kodiak Archipelago. The subspecies of bears developed after brown bears migrated to the Kodiak Archipelago 12,000 years ago from mainland Alaska. When the sea level rose at the end of the last ice age, the Kodiak bears became an isolated population.

10. Kodiak bears are the world’s largest, with some adult males exceeding 1,000 pounds. Kodiak bears eat fish, grass, plants and berries.

11. Bear-viewing is one of the most popular activities on Kodiak Island. July, August and September are said to the best months for bear-viewing. From the city of Kodiak, a number of local air taxis offer half-day bear viewing trips with an experienced guide

12. United States Navy SEALs learn cold weather survival tactics at the Naval Special Warfare Cold Weather Detachment located just outside of the city of Kodiak.

13. The United States Coast Guard maintains a major presence in Kodiak, Alaska, including the USCG Kodiak Air Station, as well as the home port for the USCGC Alex Haley, the Spar and the Munro.

14. Scenes in the movie The Guardian starring Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher were filmed around Kodiak and at the USCG base.

15. Actress Darby Stanchfield , one of the stars of the television series Scandal, hails from Kodiak, where she was born and raised.

16. In 2012, the Kodiak Walmart won a national competition by getting the most Facebook likes between June 18 to July 15, 2012. As a result of the win, the rapper Pitbull visited on Kodiak, receiving a key to the city from the mayor and making an appearance at the Coast Guard base.

17. Students from villages throughout Alaska study at Saint Herman’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in Kodiak to become readers or clergy in the Orthodox Church.

Learn more about Kodiak, Alaska with these resources:

Close To My Heart Writing and Living Stories on Kodiak Island, Alaska

Dominion of Bears: Living with Wildlife in Alaska

Herman: A Wilderness Saint: From Sarov, Russia to Kodiak, Alaska

What fun fact can you add about Kodiak, Alaska? 

 For interesting facts about far-flung destinations, check out these other Fun Facts posts:

• 18 Fun Facts About Phuket, Thailand
• 12 Fun Facts About Dutch Harbor, Alaska
• 15 Fun Facts about Cornwall, England
• Visiting Alaska? 22 Fun Facts You Might Want to Know
• 11 Fun Facts to Know About the Cook Islands
• 24 Fun Facts About Cochin “Kochi” India
• 20 Fun Facts About Colombo, Sri Lanka

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