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World traveler's journey
A young Liberty resident broadens his horizons through educational trips that have taken him around the world.
When a People-to-People representative first interviewed Ryan Fitzsimmons about his participation in its student trips, one question focused on homesickness. “I told them no ... I don’t get homesick but I get sick of home,” Ryan said.
It’s not that he doesn’t love his parents, Mary and Bill Fitzsimmons of Mount Everett Road in Liberty, extended family and their five dogs and four cats.
It’s just that he loves to travel. He started his world tour when he was 12 years old; he’s 17 now.
And of the continents of Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe and Australia, Asia is the only one he hasn’t been to ... yet. In fact, Ryan has traveled some 82,000 miles outside of the United States.
“He’s an explorer,” said Mary Fitzsimmons of her son, a senior at Liberty High School. “He’s a people person and is confident about meeting strangers.”
Ryan’s father said his son’s globe trotting is a “great experience for him and he’s matured from it.”
Ryan most recently journeyed to Antarctica through Students on Ice, which partnered with People to People. The Web site, www.peopletopeople.com, notes that the People to People Ambassador Programs, based in Spokane, Wash., offer “life-changing educational travel opportunities for students, athletes, educators and professionals.”
Students on Ice specifically offers educational expeditions to the Antarctic and the Arctic. Mary Fitzsimmons said People to People is good about providing information to parents on their children’s journeys and posts updated details on it Web site as the trips progress. The trip to Antarctica cost about $10,000; other trips Ryan has taken cost an average of $5,000.
Ryan’s trip was from Dec. 29 to Jan. 11; there were 40 students and four counselors. He first flew to Miami, then to Santiago, Chile, and then to Ushuaia, Argentina, which is regarded as the southernmost city in the world.
“I went to the southernmost gift shop in the world at Verdansky Station, a Ukrainian research station,” Ryan said. In Ushuaia, he boarded the MV Ushuaia, a cruise ship originally built for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The ice-breaker ship is now a floating facility on which scientists, researchers, teachers and students mingle.
“It took two days to get to Antarctica ... and we traveled through Drake Passage, which has the roughest seas in the world,” Ryan said. The passage is the body of water between the southern tip of South America at Cape Horn, Chile, and the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica. “We went from being vertical to tipping 45 degrees on either side,” Ryan recalled.
Ryan was fortunate enough to see whales in the open sea. “A humpback went under the bow of the ship,” he said.
But he also saw the sobering sight of “piles of whale bones” at Whaler’s Bay, where significant whaling took place in the early 1900s.
At another island in the Antarctic, he saw what was estimated as 500,000 pairs of penguins. He noted the white snow and ice was turned into a “mountain of black” by the dark-coated penguins.
A visit to Pendulum Cove at Deception Island provided a unique experience because there is an active volcano there.
“I sat in 107-degree water with my feet in 37-degree water,” Ryan said, adding that his group dug a temporary trench for volcano-warmed water.
Because the program is education-based, participants are required to keep a daily journal of their experiences and what they are learning. They also can get educational credits. Ryan said the trips are much more than going to a destination.
“I like to learn. ... I’m curious,” he said. “Seeing places in person is so much better than seeing it in a documentary,” Ryan said. “You get a better understanding, ... you learn from it.”
Ryan is a student at Liberty, and he’s also attending Youngstown State University, where he is taking classes in world history and civilizations and sociology.
“I want to study cultural anthropology and be a professor,” he said of his goal. “I like to learn about people, and I’m interested in botany and geography,” he said. And that all figures into the multiple trips he has taken through People to People.
The learning experience isn’t limited to the trips that Ryan has taken. He also has developed a work ethic to help pay for the excursions. Ryan’s parents help him financially, but he has worked at various jobs to pay for his globe trotting. “I’m the ditch digger ... the lowest one using a hand shovel,” he said of his current job with the excavating company owned by his grandparents, Jack and Fran Pappa.
“I think I’m really frugal when I travel. My travel backpack is really organized. I have everything I need in there. ... It’s my lifeline,” Ryan said.
Ryan said his trips have given him a “global” view of financial, environmental and social issues. “Some people are so friendly and willing to help you out ... and there are those who want to scam you,” he said. He also noted that he now has friends around the world.
He also said his trips have given him an appreciation for the benefits and lifestyle he has in America.