While sitting on the couch doom scrolling on Instagram, science teacher Caitlin Zatroch stumbled across a stunning image that immediately caught her attention. The picture was of a person riding a camel in the desert, and she thought to herself “I could do that.” A few weeks later the idea of traveling far for the first time became a reality, as she was in Morocco alone hoisting herself onto the camel. 

Since then, Zatroch has visited 39 countries and counting. Whenever the possibility of flying across the country presents itself, the answer is always an instant yes. Whether it’s traveling to a new place, or trying a new food, she is always up for the adventure.

“I never want to leave a place and think ‘oh we should have done that.’ I always say that ‘this isn’t going to be the thing that kills me,’” Zatroch said.

Out of all the different sceneries, exotic animals and spontaneous side quests she’s experienced, her favorites were Japan, Singapore, and France.

This past summer, Zatroch and her husband, Charles, booked a flight to Japan with not very high expectations. As they went up in the mountains, and deep in the forests, Zatroch quickly realized that it was more beautiful than she had expected.

“It just felt very magical, and like a unicorn could wander out while you were in there,” Zatroch said.

Zatroch traveled to Singapore her first time while she was part of the Canadian Air Cadets. When she was just 12 years old, she happened to see a newspaper ad for the Canadian Military, signed up, and stuck with it until she was 17. 

“The newspaper said all this stuff about ‘Do you want to be a pilot?’ ‘Do you want to be an astronaut?’, and I was like yeah I want to be an astronaut,” Zatroch said. 

She was offered a very intriguing task when she was 16 years old to go to Singapore to be one of the members that stands behind Princess Anne as she presented an important speech to the public. Princess Anne is a part of the British royal family, and is the daughter of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. Zatroch was beyond excited to be involved in something so meaningful, and of course, she went. 

One of the most visited places Zatroch has continuously gone back to is France. She has gone there a total of 4 times, and always enjoys the stay. In fact one of the longest trips she has ever taken, had been in Europe in a bunch of different countries, including France. 

“I was in Europe for 3 weeks, in 2016. We backpacked, camped and stayed at peoples houses. You know you’re much more adventurous when you’re 24,” Zatroch said. 

Over the years, Zatroch and Charles have immensely improved their traveling skills. Which includes learning how to travel efficiently with camping gear. They both love going to National Parks, if they visit a new place. When the weather is pleasant enough, they will camp at the park’s campground. 

“The national park service operates 631 different sites, of which only 63 are national parks. Of the 63 national parks I’ve been to, about 40,” Zatroch said. 

Their obsession for national parks started on their honeymoon in Charleston, South Carolina. They only had a couple of days down there, so they decided to go to The Fort Sumter National Monument. Fort Sumter, is a civil war site, where they say the actual civil war started. Walking into their gift shop, they saw a little lego cannon, and from there the collection just kept growing. 

“Then the next time we were at a national park, I was like oh, they have these again and I got another one and now there’s a lot of them. Like an embarrassing number. They’re all scattered around. I’ve been working on getting them all at school because the clutter up the house pretty bad,” Zatroch said. 

Another big part of their traveling is their massive camera. When visiting the national parks and different countries, Zatroch always has the camera out and ready, on the lookout for animals. 

“I’m really into wildlife photography. When we go to all these national parks, we have a big camera with a big lens, and we take wildlife pictures. I’m not very good at taking pictures of people, but lots of animals and birds,” Zatroch said. 

In fact one of the goals that they have when going outdoors somewhere new, is to see something like a type of animal or bird. The best memory that she had when traveling was when they visited Death Valley, California, and on the last and final day there, they saw their chosen animal for that specific trip. 

“I really wanted to see a roadrunner, and on the last stop I was like, lets just go on this trail really quick. When we got on the trail I was talking about how good of a trip it was, but I didn’t see a roadrunner. As I was saying that, it ran out and stood on the trail and posed. And it just stood there for like 10 minutes.We took a bunch of pictures of this roadrunner, and it looked really stupid,” Zatroch said. 

With all of Zatroch’s escapades, she has learned much about herself. From going to Morocco alone with many mistakes and no research done before she went, to her last vacation to Big Island Hawaii, she has gained knowledge of how to plan to make the trip fun but still organized. She has learned a lot on the trips that she’s taken both with her husband and by herself. 

“I think traveling by yourself is really good, because there’s no one to solve your problems but you, and you kind of learn how to deal with that on your own, and it’s made me a better traveler,” Zatroch said.\

Ms Zatroch is really influential to me, because of her outgoing personality. She is always living her life to the absolute fullest. Right now, she has a flight booked to go to the Netherlands and then Belgium, plus another trip to London for this summer.

Since we only live once, it’s important to say “yes” and take those risks, to expand our life outside of the city of Superior. Traveling shows you different cultures and gives different perspectives that can’t be learned at home.