As the title says, my first real overseas experience was in Rome, Italy. When I was 10 my dad took the whole family along on one of his business trips to Rome. After the 8 hour flight (mindblowingly long at the time), we arrived in what I thought was the most wonderful place in the world! We saw all the usual tourist sites. I marvelled at all the cats that lived in the Colosseum and the randomness of Italian McDonald's happy meal toys. I loved the view from our...

When I was younger my parents took me and my sister on vacation to the Cayman Islands. While sheltered from a lot of the culture and people of the island (because I was a kid on a family vacation), one memory that really sticks out is swimming with stingrays. While staying on Grand Cayman (not sure what city), we took a boat out to this shallow area in the Carribbean that was just swarming with stingrays! We were given snorkels and fins and a bit of raw squid...