34 states and counting.

Written for The Edge Magazine here.

This turned-tradition shared between Elon first-year Madalyn Howard and her dad might just make you want to book a plane ticket to your bucket list destination right now. 

Madalyn and her dad, a jet-setting duo. (Photo submitted by Madalyn Howard)

Originally from Vassalboro, Maine and now abiding in Lake Wiley, South Carolina, this duo has made traveling across the world a tradition they practice faithfully. 

While most spent Thanksgiving at their homes, Madalyn and her dad, Thomas Howard, spent Thanksgiving on a trip out West road-tripping, site-seeing, rock-climbing and so much more. The Hoover Dam, Zion National Park and Route 66 from Disney’s famous Cars (feeling nostalgic?) were just some of the sites they visited. 

“As soon as we landed [in Las Vegas] and got a rental, I drove Madalyn up ‘The Strip’,” Mr. Howard said. “I wanted to make sure she saw the lights.” 

But these destinations weren’t chosen at random. In fact, their trip destinations are often chosen from the list of places they have yet to see together. And this time, that meant a trip out West so that Madalyn could check more states off of her jam-packed list of previously visited ones. 

“I had never been and it was really cheap,” she said. “We were looking at states that I had never been to and that was the cheapest place to go.”

For Mr. Howard, who grew up in a small town where the nearest McDonald’s was 45 miles away, introducing his daughter to the many spectacles of the world was just as much, if not more, of a priority as it was for him growing up. 

“My parents, living on modest means nevertheless, took my sisters and me to Boston and Worcester once or twice a year,” he said. “My parents stressed the importance of travel at an early age… We always have wanted Madalyn to be exposed to as much as possible of what the world has to offer.”

‘Exposed’ in Madalyn’s case is an understatement. With 34 states currently checked off, Madalyn is only getting started with her travel. But she still has some catching up to do, as her dad is just one appointment away from all 50. But who ever travels to Alaska anyway? 

An executive for a large pulp, paper and diaper manufacturer, or what Madalyn likes to refer to as “a paper company that’s like ‘The Office’,” Mr. Howard has always been required to travel for business-related matters. 

Thankfully, 28 years on the job has earned him a great deal of vacation time that he and Madalyn use to travel. 

Madalyn, however, did not begin joining him on trips until she was eight years old when a business trip to Phoenix, Arizona presented itself. Unenthused, Madalyn agreed to join her dad on the trip (as if she, the eight-year-old, had much of a choice anyway). 

Madalyn Howard, smiling. (Photo submitted by Madalyn Howard)

“I was not looking forward to it at all,” she said, “but we went and we ended up doing the Grand Canyon and just seeing a different part of the country that I had never seen before. 

“It just started… a trip that we would take every year together. It was a great way to spend one-on-one time because he does travel so much.” 

And perhaps that’s what the duo loves most about traveling: the time they are able to spend together, experiencing new things. 

“He’s such a great person to travel with,” Madalyn said. “He’s so knowledgeable and he knows his way around everywhere… He used to work as a tour guide in Washington D.C., so he kind of has that all down.”

Traveling with her dad is like going on a vacation for a school field trip, like “going somewhere and having fun, but also learning a lot,” Madalyn said. 

While Madalyn admires her dad’s knowledge, expertise and ability to make any trip a fun-filled adventure, Mr. Howard loves being able to see the world with a different perspective. 

When asked what he loves most about traveling with Madalyn, he said: “That’s easy. Seeing our new surroundings through her eyes… I love seeing Madalyn connect the dots and then to see her curiosity fed.” 

And if you aren’t sold on their traveling expertise by now, perhaps it would be beneficial to know that these travelers leave ample room for spontaneity on their trips. With the exception of plane tickets and lodging accommodations, it is seldom that Madalyn and her dad formulate a destination itinerary… an approach only experts would be confident employing. 

“We try to take organized tours to be calibrated with the local area, but the real fun… the real learning… takes place on the back roads, the little towns, the abandoned sites that we stumble across,” Mr. Howard said. 

“On every trip we agree the best things we have seen are things that we weren’t supposed to see,” he added. 

And, to her advantage, being an only child allows Madalyn the freedom to call the shots on last-minute places to visit. Well, most of the time… 

“Luckily, we don’t really plan stuff out,” Madalyn said. “We kind of just do whatever we want, so I’m able to spring stuff on him last minute.” 

Her lists of eleventh-hour places to hit routinely comprise of a lot of “pop culture stuff,” she said. Be it a film location of one of her favorite movies or a neat spot advised for traveling to in a podcast, Madalyn makes sure to keep the schedule interesting. 

While visiting family in Colorado last year, Madalyn and her dad even went up to Estes Park to stay in the Stanley Hotel. For all those non-fans, this hotel is where Stephen King stayed when he wrote “The Shining.” 

“I go out of my way to find really neat stuff like that,” Madalyn, the horror-movie enthusiast, said. 

Travel for Madalyn and her dad, however, is hardly confined within the U.S. border. In fact, Madalyn solo-traveled to China this summer to visit a high school friend. Yes, you read that correctly. China. 

For the month of June, Madalyn and a few friends traveled between her friend’s hometown of Xi’an, Chengdu, Shanghai and so many more. And, barring the exotic cuisine, Madalyn said she would go back in a heartbeat. 

“It was such a cool experience,” she said. “But I can’t say I enjoyed a single thing that I ate. Rabbit head, pig knuckles… it was horrible.” 

Madalyn, again. Still smiling. (Photo submitted by Madalyn Howard)

Madalyn attributes her confidence in traveling on her own to her dad, who, surprisingly, was completely fearless about Madalyn’s international expedition. 

“I doubt that I will ever get to see, let alone experience China the way she would,” Mr. Howard said. “So I was just incredibly excited for the opportunity and saw this as probably the closest I would ever get to China.” 

But had it not been for the once-loathsome trip to Phoenix, or the countless trips that followed, Madalyn wouldn’t have gathered the courage to travel on her own, she said. 

“I would never be able to do that if my dad hadn’t laid that travel foundation for me,” she said. “It was one of the coolest, most odd and spontaneous things I had ever done.” 

What once began as an annual spring break trip evolved into, what Madalyn calls, “an anytime-that-we-can sort of deal,” and forged a relationship that neither of them would trade for the world. 

Perhaps the duo’s next trip will be to Alaska, the lone state left on Mr. Howard’s to-do list, or one of the few states Madalyn still has yet to visit. Or maybe to Porto, Portugal, where Mr. Howard intends on residing part-time in the future. 

“It’s [Porto] amazingly affordable, easy to get around and breathtaking views regardless of where you look,” he said. “The food is amazing, the people are friendly and did I tell you it is amazingly affordable?” 

Regardless of where they might jet off to next, the duo believes that traveling is less about the destination and more so about seizing the opportunity to do it. And that, sometimes, the best destinations are those in our own backyards if we take the time to explore. 

“Some of the best times for Madalyn and me have been much more local,” Mr. Howard said. “We love to explore nearby cities like Greenville, South Carolina. Heck, we can even be found checking out back roads where we live in York County, South Carolina. My point is that one doesn’t need to go far, but one needs to go.

“In so many ways, it doesn’t matter where you go…,” Mr. Howard said, “it just matters THAT you go.” 

Now tell us, do these world travelers make you want to acquire their get-on-a-plane-and-go mindset? The world is calling. Where will you go next? 

Find published story here.