Learning to Walk on My Own: A Journey of Following Footsteps Through Europe

Indianapolis, IN

This creative project is a travel memoir written about my three trips to Europe between 2014-2017. During those trips I visited England, France, Spain, Italy, and Ireland. The purpose of this project stemmed from my love of stories and travel. The purpose was for me to challenge my critical thinking skills in the form of self-reflection. In addition, it challenged me to use creative writing, specifically the creative nonfiction genre, to express my ideas and analysis about my personal growth. The research process for this project consisted of rereading my travel journals from each trip, while also reading a variety of travel memoirs to help me determine my writing style. The narrative I crafted focuses on how my experiences abroad changed me as a student and a person. The overarching theme of my memoir is following in people’s footsteps. I wrote myself as the protagonist of my own story who finds her way across Europe by literally following her guides and metaphorically following famous writers and characters. In the end, I was able to lead myself through a foreign country, following my own footsteps. Writing this memoir posed another challenge for me as a storyteller; I was both the author and the protagonist. Overall, this project taught me that travel has the power to make a profound impact on your life, but your reflections on those experiences allow that growth to continue long after you have returned home.