GirlGI | Girl Gone International GirlGI Issue 3 | Page 85

You might feel as though the urge to travel is simply in your blood. Turns out, it just might be. Paul Theroux, travel writer and the son of a French Canadian father and an Italian mother, said that the desire to travel is ‘characteristically human.’ While that might hold true for Girl Gone Internationals, we all know people who would rather not leave the comforts of home and who have never suffered from acute wanderlust. So what makes us cram our lives into a suitcase, cross time zones and seek adventures in a foreign country: is it nature or nurture? Beti Gategi is no stranger to adventure. Raised in the US by her Kenyan parents, she has lived in Australia, the UK, and Kenya and has travelled around Africa. Her parents have now embarked on their next international adventure and are in the process of moving from the US to Turkey. When asked her thoughts on whether she was born a GGI or whether her upbringing made her into one, she replied ‘My Dad gave me books, which made me thirsty for knowledge and adventure.’ When she told him she was moving to Australia, he ‘all but jumped at the chance to help me pack. . . I’m not really sure I had a chance to be anything other than a Girl Gone International.’