About me
why I call myself the Sansei traveler...
“Sansei? What does that have to do with travel?”
“Is that Chinese or Japanese?”
And the best one yet…”Isn’t that what Mr. Miyagi [in the original “Karate Kid” movies] was?”
(Well, it’s actually a sensei, but that’s for another day)
I’ve actually had other travel blogs with other names, trying to go for something that conveys my niche, identity, branding, etc. It also had to be SEO-friendly so search engines could easily land on it. But nothing really stuck or resonated, which is probably why I’ve let them go, one by one.
This name does, even if people are going to struggle spelling it.
So...what exactly is that?
You see, I’m a third-generation Japanese American. As far as I know, I don’t have any other ethnic makeup in my DNA (I should probably invest in one of those kits to find out, just for sure).
So this truly is part of my identity and shaped who I am today. Its affected everything from my education to my politics to my personality. Plus, it’s made me stand out when I’ve needed that boost.
It’s also influenced my love of travel, which has encouraged me to discover the world and learn to appreciate differences in cultures and the wonderful mosaic of diversity.
While I spend most of my travel time in and around the American West, my day job will now allow me to travel further. I work as a travel agent, and I’ll be going on my first FAM trip here soon. My family and I traveled to Japan last year, and it certainly was a moment of personal discovery. My two kids loved it so much, they want to return...and so do I (that's us in the photo above, with my husband's partial body. Sorry, honey)
Something a little extra
One thing I love to do when traveling is find the things that make a destination unique, or give it character and uniqueness. That could anything from food, recreation, stores, events or sports, and it’s not always the most obvious thing about a place.
Take San Francisco, for example. I won’t just talking about the sourdough bread you can find at Boudin or any number of supermarkets, farmers markets and 99.2% of the restaurants around town. But I’ll also let you know about the best roasted duck you can savor in Chinatown, or the most noteworthy eats in the only certified organic restaurant in Major League Baseball.
That’s what you’ll get here, plus a bunch more.
When I’m not traveling, consulting or writing, I follow my two first loves. Those are the San Francisco Giants and 49ers (and sort of the Warriors), running, hiking, reading, knitting, cooking and finding the next great dessert. My family joins me whenever they can on these adventures, when they can tolerate me.