The Story Behind My Hidden Pennies

My entire family (both extended and immediate) loves to travel. It’s essentially in my DNA. My parents quit their jobs in 1981 to travel the world for a year. My great-aunt made multiple trips across the Atlantic on a steamship to visit the relatives in Ireland. My aunt and uncle have traveled to more than 100 countries and have lived and worked all over the world. Before my brothers and I were out of our teen years, we’d seen every province and territory in Canada, as well as all 50 US states. Similarly, my cousin Robert embarked on his own around-the-world-trip in 2004. 

He traveled some 65,000 kilometres and his trip spanned 5 continents. Though Rob had many great travel words to live by, my favourite was that one should take something with you to every country to visit (keeping you grounded and linking yourself to home), and leave a part of yourself behind (obviously that wouldn’t damage the environment). His solution to the latter was to leave a Canadian penny behind in various locations around to the world. He kept track of these hidden locations through his blog, and then his hope was to one day, go back and collect them all, or as many as he could. 

Unfortunately, Rob passed away in December, 2015. While Rob and I shared many travel stories and longed to travel to many of the same destinations, I never got around to asking him how many he went back to collect, though I don’t imagine it was very many. 

I am currently about to embark on a trip we talked about doing at least half a dozen times – journeying across Russia on the transSiberian train – one of the longest train journeys of the world. 

Though Rob won’t be on the train journey himself, I hope that by leaving behind several Canadian pennies, he will be there in spirit. 

Throwing a penny into the Blue Grotta, Capri.