The last two decades of cosmic ray research have been eventful, to say the least. The Voyager spacecraft explored the outer‐most regions of the heliosphere and eventually left our local astrosphere to explore the galaxy. At the same time, the Parker Solar Probe spacecraft, amongst many other exciting recent missions, is exploring the inner‐most regions of the heliosphere and probing the source of the solar wind. I have been lucky enough to experience these paradigm‐shifting observations as a post‐graduate student and thereafter as a young researcher. In this paper, I give a firsthand account of the last two decades' cosmic ray research from the perspective of a young researcher from South Africa.