Shown below: A moment of bliss on my 1987 World Tour.

It was the new cold of an October day, made all the colder by the fact my heart was in the love blender after a recent betrayal and subsequent breakup. So there I was, in the tradition of a great many Southern heroines, setting out to collect my thoughts and my dignity during an extended holiday abroad. Instead of pantaloons and party dresses pressed in steamer trunks, I packed black Levis, camp shorts and high-top white Reeboks into a well-researched, newly purchased convertible backpack that was to become my second skin in the weeks ahead.

The momentous day, the 29th of the month, had started early. The clock had been set for a well-before-dawn alarm. I was awake even before it went off, already ringing with the inherited current of excitement that comes from starting adventures before first light. I can trace this feeling back to when I was a toddler and was awakened in the ink blackness of pre-morning to be bundled off into the car. My mother, grandmother and grandmother's friends (and cousins by marriage), Frank and Thelma were off to visit Aunt Bernice and Uncle Al in New Jersey, and to attend the 1964 World's Fair in New York City. I'll never forget the feeling of being up long before the world's feet hit the ground, happily en route to places yet unknown. It was thrilling.

This same manic spirit was still intact years later, and I was up and checking off the last few items on my packing list long before daybreak. Then I sat on the floor and loved on my dog, Alf, as true a friend as I will probably ever have, and Grace, my on-again, off-again cat, for a long while and then took a fresh Polaroid of each of them to take with me. I went over countless last-minute details with Hampton, my patient assistant and the person who was going to take care of my animals and run things in my home and graphic design office while I was gone. I had known Hampton since we were in first grade together. I had bribed him to adopt this uncivilized time of arising, luring him with tales of early morning travel excitement. He generously cooperated, but I got the feeling he is probably missing my family's pre-dawn gene.

Finally, I bade Alf a final goodbye (couldn't find the cat), loaded my pack into the trunk of the car and drove, with Hampton riding shotgun, to the Charlotte airport for a 6:50 a.m. flight to Washington, DC, via Pittsburgh. I unloaded my gear at the airport curb, threw Hampton a kiss and the keys to everything I owned except what was on my back, and I was off.

One city and a few hours later, I found myself struggling to look the picture-perfect nonchalant traveler in the DC airport. I was waiting to meet my traveling companion, Platonic Sam, and rifling for the millionth time through the packet of discount air broker tickets that would take me around the world over the next ten weeks.

It was almost noon and I was near the verge of slipping into obsessive compulsion by checking and rechecking my belongings and mentally cataloging all of the items that had been on my list to pack, when I finally caught a glimpse of Sam coming through the crowd. He sighted me, and as he came toward me and settled into the 1950s molded airport lounge seat next to me, I coyly remarked about the chill in the air and the inevitability of the coming cold season.

"No way around it, I guess," I said in a way that sounded lame beyond redemption as soon as I said it. "Oh, yes there is," said Sam, with a twinkle in his eye. And with that, we boarded the first of a series of transports that would eventually unfurl us on the sun-baked sands of a blissful Tahitian isle.

Shown below: After 30+ hours of travel, Sam (and two fellow travelers who were strangers to us at the time) catch a catnap on the ferry as we crossed to the Island of Moorea. Later, these women, Julia and Monica (both of whom coincidentally had just spent the summer as camp counselors in the North Carolina mountains), would become our traveling partners for several fabulous days exploring the North Island of New Zealand.

Shown below: Recording the damage on film of a nasty gravel-induced scooter accident in Tahiti on the first full day of my 10-week trip.

Check back soon for the next installment of my mad gallivant around the world.