Junior, Madison Fontaine, has been traveling all over the globe her entire life, with her trip to Australia in December marking the 50th country she has traveled to. She mentions that she has “been traveling basically since I was old enough to fly. My family and I are from London, but we moved to Italy, where I lived for most of my really young childhood ages. During that time before we moved back to the US, we would travel to European countries a lot because they were close by. When we moved to America, we would do a lot of traveling to the Caribbean and South America.”

For people who are thinking of traveling, Fontaine recommends traveling to Australia, China, France, Spain, and Belize. When it comes to traveling in general, the positives include getting to meet new people, trying different types of food, and the capacity for places that someone could visit. Although there are negatives such as long flights and jet lag,

the positives heavily outweigh the negatives. “I enjoy getting to experience the other cultures and lifestyles in other countries. Especially in China/Japan and Australia/New Zealand. It’s really interesting to see how there are so many people that live lives that are really different from what our lives look like. In Australia, they are very laid back and not as fast paced as we are in America. I also love to see really random places around the world because it’s crazy to think that these places exist while we live in a regular town.” Even though Madi likes to live in the moment, she admits that she always travels with her gopro.

Although she admits that Australia has been her favorite country that she’s traveled too, her favorite experience takes place in Europe. “My favorite traveling experience would probably be last summer when we backpacked around Europe for a month. We basically stayed in hostels and just went sightseeing and like went to free museums. We got to hike mountains in the Alps but also walk through Paris and London with only our backpacks. It was really cool to see so many countries while not being a “tourist” and staying at a nice hotel while doing tourist things.”

Fontaine seems to live a life of luxury but it does have its downsides. “As I‘ve gotten older, it’s been harder to travel and

miss school. Over the summer it is not usually an issue. However, I usually miss school during February, April, and Winter break which is especially hard because midterms are coming up.” Even throughout the added difficulty, she manages to keep her grades up and continue her studies confidently. In the future “I plan on traveling after high school. I want to go to school in Sydney, Australia and hopefully live there for awhile. I also really want to live in a bunch of random places to get to experience a lot of different cultures. I don’t really know how much i’ll be traveling because I think I would rather live somewhere for like a year then visit it for three weeks.” Fontaine can’t wait to continue to travel and hopes to travel to Thailand next, and hopes to keep the rest of us updated.