Travel, Travel, Travel

 Originally published on my Wordpress blog 02.09.2020

I recently posted a piece about the inconveniences and annoyances of travel by air.  It was quite the rant and served no point other than to allow me to vent. I had to get all those angry thoughts and feelings about the current state of air travel out before I could move on to the delights of travel. This post will not be a rant but I am curious to see how my views on travel match with other people's views.

I didn't have many opportunities for travel as a child. We were a big family living on a small salary and travel was not a line item in the budget.  The biggest travel adventure of my life before the age of 20 was to go via packed station wagon on jaunts down to Ensenada in Baja California.  Because I grew up in SoCal, it was relatively easy for my parents to take us camping on the beach down there. At the time the area was fairly remote and camping down there was safe and had few modern amenities. It was cheap fun.

My travel opportunities picked up when I reached my twenties.  During that decade I went on several long road trips with friends (through the Pacific Northwest, across Canada to Calgary, across the US to the Rockies and Nebraska and Oklahoma) and traveled often between SoCal and my new digs in NorCal.  Additionally, I had the chance to fly to South Korea and stay with my brother there for several months.  While there, that brother and I traveled to Europe, earning our air fare by serving as orphan escorts for children being adopted by European parents . We had thirty days and very little money before our return ticket expired. We did the classic hitchhiking through Europe gig popular at that time and returned with bags of stories.  Connecting children with their  adoptive families in the US is also how I secured an affordable ticket back home when my time in South Korea was up. Additionally, a few years later, I got to go to Colombia one summer and stay with that same brother and spend some time absorbing that South American culture.

Fast forward into my thirties.  Travel had to take a bit of a back seat to work responsibilities and raising kids but we still managed to get away.  A different brother and his family lived on the Big Island of Hawaii so went went there twice.  A friend told us about wonderful and affordable summer vacation possibilities in Whistler, British Columbia (affordable because pre-2010 Winter Olympics) and the whole family reveled in going there so we made that happen three times.  We had closer to home travel adventures with the kids as well including an annual tradition of a spring break trip to Yosemite and several trips to the Monterey/Carmel coastal area.

The next years added another travel adventure to my collection. I started going as a chaperone on trips to Washington DC with 8th grade classes.  These trips were my first real experience with big city traveling (San Fransisco, for some reason, doesn't count, maybe because it has always been a day trip for me).  The leader of the DC trips was a smart, funny, fun, and knowledgeable historian and I learned so much and had such a great time.  I participated in six of those trips over six years and that whetted my appetite for urban travel.  In subsequent years I visited Portland (Oregon), Seattle, Boston, Santa Fe, Chicago, New York City (x4), and Los Angeles (x2).  Additionally,  I've been able to step foot into parts of Alaska. I was also stoked to be able to see Yellowstone and enjoy a pocket of Wyoming.  A couple of summers ago, I even orchestrated a trip to Ireland satisfying a life long desire to visit that part of my heritage.

By briefly describing  my experience with travel, I hope I have demonstrated that I have some (but not a tremendous amount) of familiarity with travel.  I've had enough exposure to travel to have a reasonably well informed opinion about the pros and cons of such adventures.  One of the most significant pluses to travel for me is that getting away from my familiar world has made my world view so much bigger.  When I read about NYC, I can feel that city's energy.  When the words buffalo, Lake Michigan, grizzly bear, Broadway, waterfall, The Freedom Trail, art museums, turtles, Galway, kimchi, Lincoln Memorial - when words like these pop up,  I have a sensory reaction. I know in my skin, my eyes, my feet what those words mean.  Nothing can replace actual experience for making a city, a region, a neighborhood real.  That's my number one reason for travel.  I want to make my world real and tangible.

Another reason I travel is that I enjoy meeting people from all over the world and I enjoy meeting them when I am a guest in their world.  I like seeing their world through their eyes.  I can see the enthusiasm for their place reflected in their eyes.  I also like to meet fellow travelers who are also experiencing an unfamiliar world.  It's fun to compare notes about our own hometowns but also about the brilliance of the common place we are visiting.  Of course it's exciting to see new and different places but it's also exciting to meet the people who call that place home.

In writing about my travel adventures, I wanted to use the word "memories" in every paragraph.  Memories are wonderful travel souvenirs.  I am fortunate to have many positive memories that are tied to travel.  Sometimes the memory is about the people I'm with or the people I've met while traveling. Those memories can calm, soothe, and/or amuse me. Memories can also center on emotions felt, images seen, foods tasted, sounds heard, or any other impact from the physical world.  Memories are so sweet. They lighten the dark days, they make me smile, they allow me to remember younger years and younger people.  They let me walk back to a younger me.  I never know at the onset of a trip what new currency will show up in the memory bank but I am never disappointed  and always grateful for the new additions.

A third motive for appreciating travel blends these first two reasons.  Travel gives me perspective.  When I step out of my routine days in my familiar place, I get to see my everyday life through fresh eyes. For one thing, I can see the patterns and even ruts of my daily life and I can choose anew if I want to resume those when I get home.  Ruts and routines are not easy to see when you are in the middle of your everyday life but they become apparent - for better or for worse - once you step out of them. For the most part, I tend to return home with greater appreciation for my own world but yet with additional inspiration and motivation to change up something or other in that world. On a broader level, travel often reminds me of how lucky I am.  It reminds me that I live in a beautiful part of the world and that I am rich in every respect.  I have visited some spectacularly beautiful places and  travel has shown me that beauty exists everywhere, including home.  I have seen evidence of great poverty and even greater wealth and I see my place along that continuum. I am indeed a fortunate human being.

Although travel is full of rich experiences, there are some drawbacks inherent in travel experiences as well. The piece that I wrote and posted  last week gives you an earful about my irritation and frustration with air travel . Beyond air travel, there are other aspects of travel that are problematic for me (though they might not be for you).  Overall, travel costs money.  Yes, you can travel "on the cheap" as they say but even "on the cheap" is going to cost a pretty penny.  Traveling by car brings not only fuel and car costs but also lodging and food on the road.  And, yes, you can limit those costs but even camping costs bigger bucks than it used to and homestays and hostels claim more money than you might expect. You either have to have a budget that can afford travel or you have to find creative ways to fund travel but, either way, it's going to cost money and even more money if you want to be comfortable.

Part of travel that I often find difficult is also something that I included in the pluses of travel.  Travel puts me out of my customary routines and patterns and that can be exciting and adventuresome but it can also be a negative.  I have been known to get quite frustrated in an attempt to find healthy, fresh food that I like to eat.  I have been known to get irritated because I am accustomed to daily exercise and sometimes circumstances are such that I can't get out and walk or i can't easily carry a yoga mat and some yoga equipment. I like reading the paper and knowing what's going on in the hometown and in the world and, yup, sometimes that is hard to accomplish when you are traveling .  I like having access to my regular clothing, books, paints, and clearly you can't access that when you are on the road. There are features of my daily life that I miss when I am traveling.  When I am missing home or something special about home, I can find myself counting the days until I can be home again.

Along those same lines, I am a person who is tied to lots of people and things at home.  With some embarrassment, I must admit that I can experience the dreaded FOMO while traveling:  Fear Of Missing Out. I can't be in two places at once so while I am traveling, I can't also celebrate my friend's birthday with her. While I am traveling, I can't also revel in what might be glorious weather at home. When I am traveling, I am going to miss my puppy dog Ellie. I am going to miss family members that I can't take with me. I am going to miss whatever else is going on in the neighborhood.  I have to close my eyes and tell myself it will all be waiting for me when I get back.  Still, it can make me count those days until I get back home.

Speaking of home, there is also the matter of home and pet care while I am traveling. I am lucky because I have close people nearby who will take care of things for me UNLESS they are with me on the trip!  My most recent excursion left me scrambling (for the first time ever) to secure a reliable and trustworthy housesitter - someone who might enjoy staying in our home in our town for ten days.  I did find the perfect person but I was lucky this time.  My cousin was excited to get out of her hometown for ten days in January and I knew dogs and house would be in good hands.  Still, I did have to do a fair amount of preparation so that Monica would know how things like heaters, ovens, the TV, the alarm system all worked.  I wrote pages of notes for her and we spent an afternoon before we left familiarizing her with dogs and property.  And not everything got covered but she figured it out. Sigh. It made me wonder about the value of travel and if this whole thing was worth it.

And therein lies the question of the day:  Is travel worth it? ACK!  My first inclination is to claim that the jury is still out but I think what is more my truth is, yes, travel is worth it but under a couple of conditions.  Travel is worth it in moderation. I need spaces between trips.  I need time to kick back and be at home.  I need time to save my money.  I need time to consider options. I need a balance of trips - some urban, some not so urban. I have to prepare well for trips that involve air travel and give myself both plenty of time and plenty of reminders about air traffic challenges. I need to remember to keep breathing and just wait for the destination.

The other condition is that I need a travel companion who is right for me.  I need someone who is curious, who has lots of energy, who is as excited about this trip as I am, and who can balance me out when I get cranky (which WILL happen). My spouse is a terrific companion for those non urban trips. He can't hike as much as I can but he is willing to give it his best shot. What I know about Michael is that he won't go on any trips that aren't interesting to him so I know the trip has his attention when he goes with me.  My sister has proven to be a delightful travel companion for those urban trips. She has even less experience than I have with urban travel but she is eager and curious and can definitely match (if not surpass) my energy levels.  She is great at noticing my moods and happy always to adjust as necessary.

I think, for me, the key to successful travel is time and space.  It's best if don't try to do too many trips.  It's best if I don't plan trips that keep me away from home for longer periods of time (two weeks is probably my max). It's best to avoid air traffic if I can and, if I can't, it's best to look for smaller airports and shorter flights.  If it can be arranged, I oddly think I do better with layovers here or there, just to break a trip up.

So then what travel plans are left to explore?  I am most eager to return to Canada.  I would like to see British Columbia again and I would like to drive across Canada through Alberta and to the Eastern provinces.  I might ideally break that into three trips. One part would include a drive up through Oregon and Washington and into British Columbia.  A second part might include a drive up through Idaho and into Alberta and visit Edmonton and Calgary.  The third part might involve air travel and a rental car to see parts of Eastern Canada (including possibly Niagara Falls). Additionally, I am always interested in returning to New York City.  So much captures my attention there. At some point I would like to see Philadelphia and I would eagerly leap at the chance to revisit Boston. I have yet to see the Grand Canyon and would relish a trip to Arizona, Colorado, and Utah.   Oddly, I have very little experience with the American Midwest.  I think it would be interesting to fly to Washington DC, rent a car, and make my way back to California via the middle part of the country.  Somehow it would be nice to get into West Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky as well.  Returning to Yellowstone in spring or fall would be delightful and I am always up for a trip to Yosemite.  I'd especially like spend a couple of winter days in Yosemite Valley. Although I visited Ireland I am not finished with that country.  I would happily return for a second helping and would love to start in Belfast.  And while I am near Belfast, I would enjoy taking the ferry/train route to Edinburgh.

Yikes!  I guess there are more places that I want to see than I even realized. And the funny thing is that above paragraph was written off the top of my head.  I stopped myself because it could go on for a long time.  I think future travel adventures will depend largely on travel companions and financial resources.  I'm clearly open to lots of places so perhaps I need to sit tight for the moment and see what opportunities either come my way or what opportunities matter enough to me to make happen.  I'll keep you posted.