Narrative by Brandon Cox, Mgt '03

Beautiful Lake Tanganyika stretched before me never-ending as a fog ensconced the Congo to my east, and on my left a city flickered in flashes of a muddled death.

My feet dug deeper into the lakeside orange sands, and I clenched my drink harder as each explosion flashed in the distance. On the edge of town, deafening blasts rocked a country exasperatedly fighting for a life of normalcy.

I pondered what had led me here, to this place. I thought of my peaceful childhood home and life growing up in the suburbs of Atlanta. It seemed a world apart from Africa.

My global travels began when I was a student. Fifteen years later, I have been to 149 countries and all seven continents.

My global travels began when I was a student at Georgia Tech. I journeyed overseas for the very first time to visit a friend of mine studying in Glasgow, Scotland.

A new passion ignited inside me, and I embarked on two study-abroad experiences before graduating. It seems like yesterday that I was 20 years old and packing for my first international trip.

Fifteen years later, I have been to 149 countries and all seven continents, yet I feel the same excitement each time I visit somewhere new.

In those early years, my travels were driven by my studies in conflict resolution. On my very first solo trip to Japan and South Korea, I met a young woman who told me a fascinating story about her family — half of whom lived in North Korea, half in South Korea.

It’s these types of personal connections that would inspire me to visit North Korea, and later go into Zimbabwe during their stolen elections in 2008.

One memorable scholarly expedition was an overland trek through Africa, from South Africa to Jordan and back. It was then that I discovered what truly gives people the means of surviving in conflict zones.

My eight-month journey took me through two different Zimbabwian elections, 11 countries with active State Department travel warnings against all “non-essential travel,” and four countries embroiled in outright war.

Despite food shortages, no access to clean water, unimaginable violence, and governmental corruption, life went on for people living in these places. My determination to understand the coalescence of peace, trade, and war in conflict zones is what had brought me to Lake Tanganyika on the border of Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

I left one civil war for another, venturing farther into lovely but lawless lands. And, in doing so, I learned that nowhere in this world is inaccessible. I also learned that trade continues despite war, and somehow, miraculously, regional economies keep people alive.

Some simple moments will always stay with me, such as sharing a beer with government officials in North Korea and discussing the joys of our completely different worlds. My travels have taken me to some very dark corners of the world, but those corners always surprised me with their magnificent natural beauty — and the beauty of the people who lived there.

Also, I will never forget hanging out with young men on the beach in Somalia talking about the funny differences in our marriage traditions. They were quite shocked that that I didn’t have a desire for multiple wives.

In Iraq, a hotel owner gave me a free place to stay in a town with no available rooms, but we ended up chatting all night about the scourge of organized crime that affected his small business and community.

The next day I met some local men who took me on a proud tour of their hometown of Erbil. A few months later while crossing from Albania into Macedonia, the men giving me a ride described all the intricacies of the corruption so prevalent in their countries. They knew best, after all, because they happened to control a modest criminal empire themselves.

There were absolutely terrifying moments as well. I barely escaped an attempted kidnapping while crossing from Honduras into Guatemala one night.

In Bahrain, driving around following the Arab Spring uprisings, I turned onto a street and was indiscriminately fired upon by rioters with AK-47s. They even threw a Molotov cocktail at me, or maybe it was at the police behind me who were firing tear gas over my car. I never stopped to ask.

To be sure, I’ve had a great deal of fun, too. I have snowboarded on four different continents, sledded in Antarctica, jumped off numerous waterfalls, scuba-dived off countless coasts and gone on safaris in Africa.

Today I work as a senior analyst for Delta Air Lines in Paris, based at the Air France KLM Headquarters, and I take advantage of the travel perks of working for an airline whose reach extends across the globe.

Perhaps the most important trip I took was in 2011, when I went on a spontaneous weekend jaunt from Hong Kong to Taiwan. That night, I was invited to a party where I met a beautiful American girl.

My weekend trip turned into 10 days exploring the country with her.

I proposed to her on Easter in the City of Love, Paris, with the Eiffel Tower looming over us. And last August, we got married. 

My travels continue, but at a different pace. This year, I am excited to journey to my 150^th country, and now I have someone to share the world with. That is the best adventure of all.