From the  Galapagos Islands to Africa, sophomore Matthew Peterson has visited a variety of exotic locations. According to Peterson, he has seen countries in the midst of disaster and some of the most exotic vacation destinations in the world.

According to Peterson, his interest in traveling started when he moved to Tokyo. Adjusting to the culture in Tokyo was not hard for Peterson. In fact, his biggest struggle was choosing where to celebrate his birthday.

“The biggest switch for me when I first moved [to Tokyo] was…my first birthday,” Peterson said. “I really wanted to got to Chuck E. Cheese’s, but they do not have them in Tokyo. That was probably the biggest hardship to [overcome].”

Matthew has a love for travel and a desire to see new places, and he also has an attraction to adventure, according to Dan Peterson, Matthew’s father.

“[Matthew] is a brave traveler,” Dan said. “He likes to go out and see his friends and see new places that he hasn’t been to before.”

One of Matthew’s most memorable experiences traveling was going sky diving.

“The plane [climbed] to 10,000 feet,” Dan said. “And then we would jump out and free fall for 5,000 feet, which took about 35 seconds in free falling. Matthew liked it so much that he went twice… It was very terrifying to jump out of the plane.”

 Skydiving was not the only frightening traveling experience Matthew has had. According to Matthew, just getting into Thailand was scary on its own.

“One time I was going from Tokyo to Thailand and I got food poisoning,” Matthew said. “When I got to customs in Thailand there were all  these signs saying we don’t let sick passengers in. And when I got to immigrations and they took my picture…I was actually [getting sick] during the picture. But I still got to go.”

According to Matthew, almost not getting into Thailand was far from the scariest thing to happen to him on the vacation. According to Melanie Peterson, Matthew’s mother, they were in Thailand during the 2004 tsunami.

“[During the tsunami] a classmate in his class and their whole entire family died,” Melanie said. “It was horribly devastating…[the tsunami] had a long term effect on [Matthew].”

 According to Dan, despite both the funny and devastating travel moments Matthew is still determined to see all seven of the continents.