Crawling through the Great Pyramid. Snorkeling in the Great Barrier reef. Polar plunging in Antarctica. These are just a few of the “pinch me” moments Don and Cheryl Hemann have experienced over the past year. During much of their marriage, the Hemanns only traveled domestically. Retirement kickstarted their commitment to international adventures, and between February 2024 and January 2025, they managed to visit all seven continents.
The goal wasn’t initially to visit all seven in a 12-month span. Canceled trips (Australia and New Zealand because of the pandemic) and Peru (because of political unrest) were rescheduled for 2024. And between those trips, the Hemanns were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary and wanted to celebrate with two more trips — one with their family on a Disney cruise to Alaska. The second was a bit more of a unique experience — the Iconic Destinations by Private Jet trip through the ISU Alumni Association Traveling Cyclones program.
“We debated it because it is a little on the expensive side, but my rationale was, if you divide the money over 50 years, it’s very reasonable,” says Don (’77) with a laugh. “I even broke it down to every week so that it would really become cheap. It was definitely worth the trip and was a perfect 50th wedding anniversary gift to each other. It was around that time when we realized we were on track to hit six continents that year. And I asked, ‘how do we get to the seventh?’”
The Traveling Cyclones program provided again, this time with a January 2025 trip to Antarctica.
“‘I’m a summer person,” says Cheryl (’77). “And I’m sorry, but Antarctica in summer is not warm, so I said, ‘You go ahead.’ Then I read more about the trip, had FOMO [fear of missing out] and decided I needed to go, too.”
During their year of travel, they visited Australia, New Zealand, England, Egypt, Jordan, India, Cambodia, Vietnam, Oman, Peru, Ecuador, the Galapagos Islands, Argentina, and Antarctica, all with fellow Traveling Cyclones.
“There’s a saying that I read a while back that says ‘you never travel alone,’” Don says. “With Iowa State, you truly never travel alone because you get on these trips, and you meet people and have a commonality right away. You immediately have something to connect to with people. We have made some good friends along the way.”