I was rooting for the Spurs.
I should probably start there. As much as I wanted San Antonio to pull it off, there was something impossible not to admire about Jalen Brunson leading the Knicks to a championship in San Antonio. A barely six-foot-something guard, Finals MVP, standing at the top of the basketball world in a city that was not his own.
Of course, Brunson’s path is not the average path. His father played in the NBA. He grew up closer to the game than most people ever will. But even with that, he still had to travel. He still had to go from gyms to tournaments, from high school stages to Villanova, from Dallas to New York, from being questioned to being undeniable.
That made me think about something I have learned over the last few years: sometimes doing big things requires movement. Not just ambition. Not just talent. Movement. You have to leave home, get in rooms, shake hands, ask questions, introduce yourself, and let people see that you are serious.
For me, the dream was becoming a head and neck surgeon.
That dream has not happened on the timeline I hoped for. I did not end medical school with a clean, perfect success story where every sacrifice immediately paid off in the exact way I imagined. My path has been more complicated than that. But I still think the journey matters, and I still believe the effort to get in front of people, tell my story, and pursue something competitive was worth it.
ENT is a small field. There are only so many programs, so many spots, and so many chances to make an impression. Sometimes the difference between being a name on paper and being remembered is whether someone has actually seen your face, heard your story, or watched you show up when it was not easy.
The hard part is that showing up costs money.
Most of medical school, I worked odd jobs to make ends meet. Even then, there were moments where I had to find additional funding just to get to conferences. Plane tickets, hotels, registration fees, Ubers, food, professional clothing — none of it is abstract when your budget is already tight. I shared hotel rooms with friends. I looked for grants. I tried to stretch every dollar because I understood that if I wanted a real shot, I could not only exist locally and hope opportunity would find me.
A lot of career advice skips over that part.
People say, “Network.” They say, “Go to conferences.” They say, “Put yourself out there.” And they are not wrong. But for students without family money or a large safety net, every opportunity has a cost attached to it. Sometimes the cost is financial. Sometimes it is emotional. Sometimes it is the embarrassment of asking for help, applying for funding, or admitting that the only reason you may not be in the room is because you cannot afford the trip.
Still, I believe travel matters.
During medical school, I traveled more than I ever had in my life. Before then, I had only left Florida a couple of times. Then suddenly I was going to annual meetings, presenting research, interviewing, and trying to create a future in a field where nothing felt guaranteed. I went through the Midwest. I went up north to Boston. I saw different hospitals, different cities, different cultures, and different ways people lived and practiced medicine.
That changed me.
It made the world feel bigger. It helped me understand that my own environment was not the full picture. It reminded me that people build careers in many different ways and that sometimes the right conversation, at the right meeting, in the right hallway, can shift how you see yourself.
I do not regret any of it.
Not every trip led to an immediate result. Not every introduction became mentorship. Not every conference changed my career overnight. But I still believe those experiences expanded my view of what was possible. They made me more comfortable walking into unfamiliar rooms. They helped me learn how to tell my story. They gave me a chance to meet people I never would have met if I had stayed home and waited.
That is the point of career travel. It is not tourism. It is exposure. It is proximity. It is a way of placing yourself closer to the people, institutions, and opportunities connected to the life you are trying to build.
Of course, everyone’s pursuit looks different.
If you are in academics, there may be travel scholarships, institutional grants, diversity funds, departmental support, research stipends, or professional organizations willing to help. Sometimes those resources are not advertised well, so you have to ask directly. If you come from a disadvantaged background, there may be programs specifically designed to reduce the financial barrier to attending conferences, visiting programs, or presenting your work.
If your path is entrepreneurship, the funding may look different. Maybe you are looking for investors, pitch competitions, incubators, small business grants, private companies, or people willing to believe in an idea before it becomes obvious. In that world, you may not be applying for a travel award. You may be selling a vision.
And sometimes, unfortunately, there may not be a clean funding source at all. Sometimes you save. Sometimes you sacrifice. Sometimes you make a trip happen in a way that feels unfair because, frankly, it is unfair. The people with the most financial cushion often have the easiest time accessing the rooms where opportunity lives.
But if you are trying to do something difficult, rare, or highly competitive, I think movement becomes part of the price.
That does not mean every trip is worth it. It is important to be strategic. Before spending money you do not have, ask yourself what the trip is supposed to accomplish. Am I presenting? Am I meeting someone specific? Am I learning something I cannot learn from home? Am I making myself visible in a field where visibility matters? Am I building relationships that could meaningfully affect my next step?
If the answer is yes, then the trip may be more than a trip. It may be an investment.
There is a version of ambition that sounds glamorous from the outside. Conferences. Flights. Hotels. Interviews. New cities. Professional photos. Name badges. But behind that can be a lot of stress, budgeting, doubt, and quiet sacrifice. For people without a safety net, traveling for opportunity can feel like betting on yourself before anyone else has fully decided to bet on you.
I still think it is worth it.
Big goals often require you to leave familiar places. They require you to be seen by people who would not otherwise know you exist. They require you to get close enough to opportunity that someone, somewhere, might finally say yes.
That was true for me in medicine, even though my story is still unfolding. It may be true for someone else in business, art, sports, research, technology, advocacy, or any other field where the path is competitive and the gatekeepers are not always local.
You do not have to know exactly how everything will work out before you go. Sometimes the value of the trip is not just the outcome. Sometimes it is the confidence you build by realizing you can enter rooms you once thought were too far away.
I traveled more during medical school than I had in my entire life before it. I did it while working, applying for funding, sharing rooms, and trying to make a dream feel possible. It was expensive. It was stressful. It was imperfect.
But it expanded my world.
And for that, I do not regret a thing.
If you are trying to do something big and you are wondering whether it is worth traveling for, my answer is this: be strategic, look for funding, ask for help, and make the trip count. The world is bigger than your hometown, your school, your current job, or your current circle.
Sometimes the next step in your life is not waiting where you are.
Sometimes you have to go get in the room.
And if you are trying to figure out how to do that — how to find funding, how to think through whether a conference or trip is worth it, or how to take the next step toward a goal that feels bigger than your current environment — feel free to reach out. I am currently a busy surgery resident, so my responses may not always be immediate, but I genuinely enjoy hearing from people with big goals and helping them think through possible next steps.
