(San Francisco) - This is where the journey begins.

I am putting the finishing touches on this first dispatch of my planned odyssey in the departure lounge of San Francisco International Airport on a Monday afternoon. I spent the weekend in the city to break up my time in the air between the east coast and my first foreign stop - Hanoi, Vietnam. If I stick to my plan I will visit close to a dozen countries over the next several months.

I have an outline of an itinerary that I am willing to change along the way. In fact, in the months of planning that went into this trip the route has changed several times. The list initially included Cuba and Iran, but for logistic and geopolitical reasons I have decided those two destinations will have to wait for a future adventure.

Vietnam is a country that dominated U.S. foreign policy for more than 20 years and still has an influence on American culture and world relations today. I plan to spend about a month in Vietnam, starting in the north and ending in the south before crossing into Cambodia, Laos* and Thailand.

My father served in World War II and my brother served stateside in the Navy at the end of the Vietnam era. The American war in Vietnam had an affect on the long-term health of my family. The first time I saw my father cry was the day he dropped my brother off at the airport so he could fly to basic training in San Diego. To say my father cried that day is not the full truth. He sobbed while sitting in a rocking chair in our living room with the shades drawn so the neighbors could not see inside. All the other twists and turns that have taken place in my family history - since 1970 - I can trace to that day. My own career in journalism, and later in government, I can trace to that day.

I am starting in Vietnam not because I am seeking something there. I am not searching for an emotionally healing experience, nor do I feel I need one, but I do expect to experience some kind of connection when I walk the streets of Hanoi and Saigon and visit the Mekong Delta. Places whose names I heard for decades on the news. Places of epic political error and dread. Places I will now be able to understand a little bit better than before. I expect the experience will correct the lens through which I see the war and the history of the United States since the war.

Based on my research, at any given time, there are thousands of people from various countries traveling the world on their own. They all have different reasons for doing so. In my case, I am simply acting on an impulse that has always resided within me. If I sense something is happening somewhere I want to be there. If a place or location is unique or carries with it the weight of history - I want to see it. So even though I am almost 50 years late - it is still important for me to see Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand.

While I am in the neighborhood I’ll visit Nepal and India before deciding on the next leg of my journey which right now calls for a brief stop in Europe before a dive into South America and a trip home next spring.

Another trait that has always been embedded in my personality is the need to share my experience with others. To write about it. To take photographs. To explain what I’ve seen from my perspective. So that’s what I’ll be doing. I have some ideas about how I will approach the telling of this story, but the final style and substance will take shape on the road in real time.

As I leave the comfort of home for cultures I have never experienced I am aware that I am leaving a country that once again finds itself in turmoil. This time it is self-inflicted. Over the last decade or so we have become a sharply divided nation. Divided primarily between the haves and have nots and divided further by partisan politics. The shining symbol of that division and some would argue a major factor in its intensity is our current president.

It is my intent to avoid turning too deeply into the politics of the United States in my writing about this trip, but given my background and the state of things here at home, I suppose it will probably be inescapable. If I am successful with this project I hope to learn more and share more about the rest of the world than I spend adding to the conversation about what is happening here. It will be interesting - I assume - to watch from overseas. It probably looks different from elsewhere.

I don’t know what awaits me on this journey I only know where I am going to meet it and approximately when I will be there.

*During my stay in Vietnam I decided to skip Laos. I decided the time it would take and the logistics involved outweighed the benefit.