Every traveler has a story about how they caught the travel bug. Mine involves a war zone, a Starbucks in Kuwait, and a small stuffed monkey who was apparently just sitting there waiting to be adopted.
This is Buddy’s story. And in many ways, it’s mine too.
Baghdad, 2006
I was in my seventh month of a one-year deployment to Iraq, stationed at Camp Victory outside Baghdad. It was October, and I had reached the midpoint of my tour — which meant two weeks of R&R leave. A brief exhale in the middle of a very long breath.
The process for getting home from a combat zone is not glamorous. You out-process, collect your travel documents, and make your way to the flight line. My route took me from Baghdad to Kuwait, where I would catch my international flight home to North Carolina. Somewhere in Kuwait, in an airport Starbucks — the kind of surreal, familiar outpost of normalcy that appears in the strangest corners of the world — I saw him.
A small stuffed monkey, sitting on a shelf, looking out at the world with those black bead eyes. Something about him stopped me. Maybe it was the absurdity of finding a stuffed animal in a Kuwaiti airport while dressed in Army gear. Maybe it was the fact that after seven months in a combat zone, something soft and uncomplicated was exactly what I needed. Whatever it was, I picked him up, paid for him, and tucked him into my bag.
I named him Buddy. And I brought him with me to Berlin, Germany for a few days of R&R before heading home to North Carolina.
The Last Six Months
When my two weeks were up, I did something that might seem strange to anyone who hasn’t been in that situation: I brought Buddy back to Iraq with me.
He didn’t go on missions. We were in full combat gear on those, both in armored vehicles and helicopters, and I wasn’t going to risk losing him. But every time I came back to my room at Camp Victory, he was there. Waiting. A small, ridiculous, deeply comforting presence in the middle of one of the more challenging environments a person can find themselves in.
That last six months was hard. Mortar attacks on the base increased. Insurgent activity intensified. I lost a friend to an IED — a loss that has never fully left me. But God was good, and I came home without physical injury.
During my out-processing at the end of the deployment, Buddy rode in my backpack with his head sticking out of the top, watching everything unfold around him. My fellow soldiers loved him. He made people smile — which, in that environment, was no small thing. A little stuffed monkey in a backpack, bringing lightness to people who needed it.
A Promise Made
When I finally came home, I made Buddy a promise.
He had gotten me through the worst six months of my life. He had been there in the quiet moments between missions, a reminder that the world outside the wire still existed — that there were Starbucks and stuffed animals and cities worth visiting and ordinary days worth looking forward to. The least I could do was show him the world.
So I did.
Since that deployment, Buddy has traveled with me on every commercial flight. He sits with me in the cabin — never in the cargo hold, never in checked luggage — and he has become something of a celebrity in his own right. Flight attendants adore him. Over the years, Delta flight attendants have given him three miniature Delta wings, which he has collected with the quiet dignity of a seasoned frequent flyer. When I fly a private plane, he gets the co-pilot seat — sitting up front, watching the horizon the way he once watched the desert.
What Buddy Has Seen
In the years since Iraq, Buddy has accumulated a travel record that most people would envy.
He has sat in the cockpits of commercial airliners and gazed out of the windscreens of Cessnas at 8,000 feet. Perched on a Lisbon rooftop overlooking the city’s terracotta rooftops. Sat quietly in a centuries-old Portuguese church, watching the light fall through stained glass. He has ridden First Class on England’s LNER railway, watched the Scottish Highlands pass outside a car window, and charmed locals from Glengoyne Distillery guides to Swissport lounge staff to Air France cabin crew — every single one of them smiling the moment they see him.
He has been to the Chapel of Bones in Évora, Portugal — surrounded by skulls and entirely unfazed. Visited the Beamish Museum and walked the grounds of Hadrian’s Wall. Stood in front of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and gazed at the Gulf of America from a weathered dock in Pensacola. He has collected a Newcastle Upon Tyne Starbucks mug, eaten pastel de nata in Lisbon, and worn a Delta captain’s hat in a Boeing flight deck while the captain grinned beside him.
He has, in short, lived up to his end of the bargain.
Why This Matters
I want to be honest about something, because this site is built on honesty.
Buddy is a stuffed monkey. He is made of brown and cream plush fabric, has black bead eyes and a small tuft of orange hair on top of his head, and he fits comfortably in a backpack or a carry-on bag. By any rational measure, he is a child’s toy.
But he is also a tangible reminder of a promise I made to myself in a difficult moment — that if I got through that deployment, I would spend the rest of my life actually living. Actually going. Actually seeing the world rather than talking about it.
He represents the philosophy behind everything on this site. We travel because we would rather look back and say “we did that” than “if only we had.” Buddy was there when I first understood what that meant.
Every trip I take, he comes with me. Every destination page on this site has a Buddy photo somewhere in it — on a gate counter, at a restaurant table, perched on a train seat, looking out at something new. He is the thread that runs through all of it.
He is small, and he is silly, and he means everything.
Buddy’s Collection
For those keeping track, Buddy’s current travel credentials include:
- Three miniature Delta wings, gifted by Delta flight attendants
- Visits to Portugal, England, Scotland, France, Mexico, Poland, Indonesia and the United States
- Numerous commercial cockpit visits across multiple aircraft types
- Several hundred general aviation flights in Cessnas and Pipers, co-pilot seat every time
- One memorable R&R trip to Berlin, Germany, in October 2006
- Countless airport lounges, train carriages, restaurant tables, and historic sites
- A Starbucks mug from Newcastle Upon Tyne and Texas mug from Dallas
- And a standing invitation to the co-pilot seat on every future flight
Not bad for a stuffed monkey from a Kuwaiti airport Starbucks.
Buddy and Jordan
Buddy travels with us on every trip, and you’ll find him throughout this site. If you’d like to follow our adventures, join our Newsletter for weekly travel stories, tips, and the occasional Buddy sighting delivered straight to your inbox.