Travel Resume

Catherine Gacad
cgacad@gsb.uchicago.edu
773.875.1159

Position: Adventure-seeking world traveler.
Motto: “I try not to go to the same place twice.”

Last International Trip: South Africa, 11/05
Last Domestic Trip: Burning Man, Black Rock City, NV, 8/06
Burning Man Trips: 5

Continents Visited: 6
North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia

Countries Visited: 24
United States, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Monaco, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Australia

Biggest Traveling Deterrent: I only speak English.
My parents speak Ilokano. Ilokano is the third most-spoken language of the Philippines behind Tagalog and English. My parents raised us speaking English, but by picking up on their own conversations, my sister and I can understand their dialect. We just can’t speak it. Another deterrent? I get lost very easily.

Highlights
– Swimming with stingrays and sharks in Belize.
– Getting up close and personal with the animals in Ecuador. Birds squawk at you instead of flying away.
– Staying with a self-proclaimed voodoo doctor in Belize who can put a snake in your belly.
– Roadtripping from San Francisco to Chicago with two b-school friends.
– Helicopter rides on safari in South Africa.
– Riding an elephant in Bali.
– Holding a lemur in Thailand.
– Watching boxing in Thailand.
– Hiking the Blue Mountains in Australia.
– Ringing in the millennium in Sydney.
– Horseback riding in Costa Rica.
– The Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris.
– Hong Kong Museum of Art.
– Musee D’Orsay in Paris.
– The Sistine Chapel in the Vatican City.
– Eating amazingly well in Italy.
– French crepes and Argentinian alfajores.
– All the clothes fit me in Singapore. Petite!

Lowlights
– My body covered in mosquito bites the first time I went to the Philippines.
– Spending the night by myself with the Masai tribe in a cowdung hut in Kenya.
– Getting yelled at in Paris because I’m American.
– Starting a fire in a waterfront restaurant in Capetown.
– Getting a heat rash in Belize that incapacitated me for two days.
– The food in Spain.