Travel

I started traveling when I was six years old. My family lived in West Germany for a year. Along with my siblings, I attended German school and fell in love with castles. When I came back to the U.S. with my coin collection of German Deutschmarks, Spanish pesos and French francs, I felt pretty worldly wise.

When I was eighteen, I wanted to become a sailor, so I went to a maritime academy in California and then worked for a summer in the engine room aboard a ship that sailed around the Pacific Rim. The more of the world I saw, the more I wanted to understand.

One January while I was in college, I flew to Moscow and lived in Russia for four months. I got hung up on trying to understand that country’s history. Somehow, I thought, it could help me understand the modern world, my world. It seemed important.

I’ve not stopped traveling since. I lived in Russia and Siberia a few more times. Most recently I was able to visit Japan, where I was invited to give a talk about my research on the history of Japan’s Siberian neighbors. I’ve also been able to take my students to different parts of the world—Egypt, Israel, Greece, and, of course, Russia.

My latest plan to take students on a trip to my own home-state, California, to study the history of Russia’s nineteenth-century efforts to colonize North America, was thwarted by a pandemic. But I hope to take that trip soon. It’ll mark the closing of a long-open circle: California, the Pacific, Russia, Siberia, California. I’m excited to share those stories with my students. Some of them are globetrotters; others have never been away from home.

In the future, I’ll update this page with travel plans and opportunities for UH students.