I started pole on April 9, 2018 and have never looked back. I don’t have a dance or gymnastics background so I basically spent the first 3 months walking around the pole and just getting used to seeing myself in all-around floor length mirrors. I had been pretty busy since dropping out of business school, doing graduate work in AI, and eventually transitioning to software engineering, which I love. I started traveling more after the pandemic. I would visit local studios in the US and abroad and even went to my first pole camp in Vila Nova de Milfontes in the Alentejo region in Portugal. When I was looking up information for studios and pole camps, it wasn’t the easiest trying to get concrete details or even just finding and contacting local studios, so I decided to share this on the Internet in the hopes that it would be at least a little helpful.