I don't remember my first trip, but I do remember when my mom took me to Disney World in Orlando. It wasn't the rides but Epcot Center that most fascinated me. It made me want to see those countries that are represented there for real.
I would go on summer vacations visiting family all over the world.
I've been to Sardinia about 10 times because my wife, my daughter and I used to go every year with another family. We rented the same house each time in Villasimius in the southern part of the island, and always went to the same two beaches and same three restaurants.
I didn't start traveling abroad until I was 17, but I spent many summers on the beaches of Donegal in Ireland.
My wife's family lives up in South Carolina, so we go back and forth quite a bit up there.
Fortunately for me, my mother loved travel. Our first non-beach family trip abroad - to England, France, and Switzerland - came when I was 11, and thereafter, we often tagged along on my father's European business trips.
When I was a kid, I would sometimes go to Ireland with our family.
I don't know why, anytime you see a car filled with people, it's either Middle Easterners or Mexicans. It's one of those two. Even for short trips, my dad would be like, 'Okay, everybody in the car.'
I don't know about you, but I love going on trips - especially with my family.
I did go on safari in Kenya when I was 17, with my mother, stepfather and little brother, and I kept a careful journal of the experience that was very helpful in terms of my sensory impressions of Africa. I have traveled quite a bit at distinct times in my life, though now that I have kids I've settled down.
When I was a boy, one of my uncles had a cabin on a lake in Wisconsin. My family went there for parts of three summers, and I loved it!
Whenever I'd go anywhere with my dad - in his 1980 burgundy Dodge Ram - he'd always listen to mix tapes of country-music stars like Garth Brooks, Clint Black and Willie Nelson. Those were the first songs I ever learned the words to.
I have the kind of life where I can take my kids on trips with me. I can involve them in my work. I've always avoided politics because I didn't want to make commitments that would take me away from raising these children.
When we grew up, our family and kind of gaggle of cousins would go to the south of France for the summers. And we just had a grand time.
Traveling with kids is tough. My best advice is don't do it.
My father loved to take us on historical vacations, and you should have seen the stares we received in East Berlin.
Of course, New Brighton is very shabby, very rundown, but people still go there because it's the place where you take kids out on a Sunday.
I spent a long time away from my parents when I was younger. I would go hunting and fishing with my uncle, and we would go for weeks at a time. I also spent a lot of time in Texas with my grandparents.
My dad listened to a lot of James Taylor when I was growing up. We had a couple of his cassettes in the car, and we'd go on a lot of long family car trips. It was either strange musicals or James Taylor - or Whitney Houston. It was quite the combination there.
In '87 - four years after 'Sports' was released - my family and I began vacationing in Montana. I soon bought my first piece of land in Ravalli County, in the western part of the state.
My son is really good at being on trips with me. He understands what's going on. He grew up with me modeling, so it's quite normal for him to be on a shoot and in pictures because he sees me doing it.
My mother would take groups of students to different countries and always brought us along, so by the time I was 10, I had been to Russia, China, Nicaragua and several other countries.
I'd be in elementary school all week, and then on the weekend, my mom would take us to Kauai or to the Big Island or to California for a contest. That was really fun.
I was eight when he left office. Like, he had an awesome house, you know, and my cousins and I had awesome trips to Camp David and Washington. It was just all like a good time for me.
My mom, dad and me were a compact group. They instilled in me a love for the outdoors. On school breaks, we'd go fishing for a week in the wilds of Alaska or Canada. The land was always in their souls.
