Most Likely to Travel the World

Senior Tyler Lucas discusses his post-secondary plans and how his senior superlative will tie into those plans

Jackson Kilburn, '23

Most likely to be a reality TV star, worst driver, and best bromance are all examples of senior superlative categories that seniors can vote their peers into where they best see fit, and this senior, Tyer Lucas, won most likely to travel the world. Senior superlatives typically don’t play a big role in a student’s post-secondary plans, but for Tyler, this would definitely not be the case.

“So right now I plan to go to a University in East London, and after that, I intend to explore the Eastern side of the world in Asia. I’ve been taking Chinese for four years now and I intend on becoming certified in speaking it. In terms of my career, I intend to become certified to teach English in a country like China or Singapore, maybe even Taiwan. It’s mainly wherever my life takes me.”

But his travels won’t be just taking place after school. He has been traveling for some time now, so with every location you’ve been to you’d eventually find your favorite, which Tyler has.

“I really liked the pockets of communities in this place called Westminster, there’s this place called Soho which is in London. It’s less touristy and more where your like college students, specifically art students go, so there’s just a lot of art and museums there. So those little pockets of urban communities are really important to visit if you’d want a grasp on the type of people that live there. If you do go international, make sure to recognize the little places because those can be really engaging.”

But of course, with travel comes the worry of COVID-19 restrictions. Due to COVID-19, our school’s transfer program had been shut down. While he won’t be around to see the reopening of the transfer program, his love for travel causes him to be excited about the future of the program.

“When COVID happened and the transfer program shut down I was really disappointed as I had always been interested in doing the program. But with the restrictions lightening up, I’m excited for the future French, Chinese, Spanish, German, and other language students who are going to be able to travel and transfer as a part of the school’s program.”

But the school’s future isn’t what he’s mainly focused on when he’s looking at the things he’s excited for in his own personal future, as he still has travel plans on deck.

“I think I am going to book a ticket back to Europe. I’m not entirely sure where yet but the good thing about Europe is it’s easy to travel by train, everything is pretty close together and interconnected so instead of just staying in London again I’d probably hit up places like Paris and Amsterdam as well.”

However, after he seeks out his post-secondary education he’s not intending on coming back and living in Iowa.

“I just can’t see myself coming back and living in Iowa, and if I were to stay in the States it’d likely be for a few years in a studio in New York City. My dream location is Singapore. I’d love to live there as there’s an incredible quality of life, it’s beautiful, really great with human rights, and recognizing who I am as a person.”

With all of this traveling, it makes you wonder how it’s even possible when he’s only in high school still, but he has had help from things such as The Stanley Foundation and the school itself, even helping him get his passport set up. He also finds a lot of importance in traveling to locations that some might be afraid of.

“If I get certified in teaching English I might go and live in China if I don’t instead just visit. I feel like it’s really important to visit the countries that are blasted on the news all the time and see what it’s really like vs what we see on our televisions at home.”

Traveling is really important to this senior, as essentially all of his post-secondary plans revolve around travel, so it’s really no wonder why this senior won Most Likely to Travel the World.