Dan Duffy, Neighbor

I move around a lot, it seems, and that habit started at a very early and impressionable age. I grew up in Medford, NJ, but spent all of my summers in Surf City. That split of living my years on a nine-month/three-month cycle has given me a more nomadic mindframe, so I try to travel as often as I can, and have a borderline phobia of ever having to buy a house.

But I have managed to stay put for long enough to have graduated from Monmouth University, twice. I received my BA in English in 2007, and went back to earn my MAT in secondary education. In the fall of 2009 I started a journey abroad that took me to Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia, where -- outside of pure charity -- I contributed as little as possible to each local economy, managing to live rent-free in hostels, under tarps, or in beautiful cliffside shacks.

I am currently pursuing a career in writing, and I hope to have some type of outlet to bring the lessons of my travels to a broad readership. My goal is to emphasize the importance of travel and to the extent that it can teach us about the way we live our lives at home; that the origin is often as important as the destination, and many other fanciful cliches, besides.