Can You Afford NOT to Travel?
When I was 26, I wanted to take a prolonged journey in Europe. And didn’t. When I was 36, I still wanted to take a few months off and explore Europe more intensely. Then I woke and found I was 46 and decided then and there that I would not be 56 and say I still wanted to take that trip. I'm now 66+ and am on my to lands far and near in the coming years!
Oh, don’t get me wrong - I had already traveled - to Helsinki and Ivalo, to Langkawi and Auckland, Magadan and Khabarovsk. To all 50 states, most Canadian provinces and a Caribbean island or two or more. I’d been to New York (lived there for a while at that), Singapore, Sydney, Krakow, Dublin and Oaxaca. I’ve snorkeled off of Maui, Lombok and Jamaica.
Yet, these trips had largely been one to three weeks at a time - enough to suffer jet lag but not enough to change the pace of one’s life for the long run.
In conversations over several years, I discovered that several colleagues had taken prolonged sabbaticals - these were not academics, either. Their sojourns have ranged in length from 4 to 12 months. Some of the time was spent traveling, some relaxing at home. Inevitably, the time off and the traveling changed them in both subtle and not-so-subtle ways.
Thus the appeal to me was several fold. First, I LOVE to travel, from the initial planning to booking tickets to figuring out hotels, to actually taking the trip. Secondly, then being 46, it was time to take stock of my life, to assess where I was, and to lay out a grand scheme for the future. Third, the timing was right. My consultant work was nearing a natural break, my wife desired to reassess her career choices as well. We actually had saved some money in past several years. I never took that pre-college, during-college, post-college European youth circuit trip. And I always regretted it. Now was the time. It’ll never be easier than now. We went for it.
And it was everything we had hoped for, and less, and more. The overriding benefit, and one which came as a surprise to me, was the clarity of thought and of memory that overtook me during the time away. The routine of our everyday life, it seems to me, also puts our mind and thoughts into a routine. The complexity of modern life requires automatic responses and lulls the brain into autopilot. The ever changing realities of travel, especially in foreign countries with different languages, currencies and cultural norms, quickly moves one from routine to real-time response on a minute-by-minute basis. Nothing is taken for granted. The brain has to keep up with the surroundings, processing new scenes, calculating costs, translating street signs and bus schedules and newspaper headlines. “What restaurant do we eat at?” can no longer rely on memories of the local eateries around home but requires sifting through a new world of strange storefronts, menus in Spanish, Portuguese and French, and, in the end, taking a calculated stab in the dark. “What do we do tomorrow?” or “Do we do anything tomorrow?” requires thought, new information from a plethora of travel guides, info from the hotel front desk and attention to one’s own and one’s partner’s state of being.
I was amazed at how quickly I forgot about work. I’ve heard from colleagues who have taken similar leaves of absence that it can take a month to put one’s “old” life on hold and begin focusing totally on the trip. For me, it happened by the time we reached our hotel in Barcelona, within 24 hours of leaving home for the airport. And it only took a few more days for the random thoughts to start occurring - thoughts of schoolmates not thought of for 25 years, of events in one’s long repressed memories that explain who I am now and why I react the way I do to certain stimuli, of opportunities taken and missed. Over the four months we were gone, not only did I get a break from the routine of life, but my thought processes were able to break out of their stiffened shape and renew their flexibility. The cobwebs being gone, new connections were made. It was a pleasant surprise, an invaluable consequence.
That said, the trip was fun, too, as expected. Food, people, drink, sights, smells, sounds, history, ceremony, exhilaration, rest, spectacle, music, dance, ferries. Oh, yeah, ferries. See, we live on an island, albeit with a bridge off of one end. But ferries connect us with downtown Seattle and make up a large portion of the attractiveness of living here. I’ve always been a ferry junkie. And during the course of our four-month trip, we took ferries in Spain, Madeira, Portugal, France and Scotland, ranging from 15-minute river crossings on the Portuguese-Spanish border to a five-hour journey to the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. From small 10-car ferries to large ships carrying over a thousand passengers. Oh, I could write on and on about this, but I digress …
What’s important to remember is to follow your interests while traveling and not to worry about missing “must-see sights” that are not really of interest or if the timing’s just not right. You can always go back as your interests change. If you’re not a real museum junkie, then don’t focus your trip on all of the must-see museums in Paris. Pick one that’s of particular interest to you - whether the L’Orangie for Monet fans like me, or the Orsey for lovers of old train stations whether you like “art” or not, or to even less touristed spots. Spend an hour or two or more or less, then just start strolling the streets of Paris. Sidewalk cafes beckon, tour boats cruise by on the Seine, the Eiffel Tower looms over all, and the Solemnity of Wednesday nights at Notre Dame call. Travel YOUR way, at YOUR pace, following YOUR interests, spending YOUR money and YOUR time and you will end up with YOUR memories, YOUR favorite spots and YOUR experiences. Journey On!
Oh, don’t get me wrong - I had already traveled - to Helsinki and Ivalo, to Langkawi and Auckland, Magadan and Khabarovsk. To all 50 states, most Canadian provinces and a Caribbean island or two or more. I’d been to New York (lived there for a while at that), Singapore, Sydney, Krakow, Dublin and Oaxaca. I’ve snorkeled off of Maui, Lombok and Jamaica.
Yet, these trips had largely been one to three weeks at a time - enough to suffer jet lag but not enough to change the pace of one’s life for the long run.
In conversations over several years, I discovered that several colleagues had taken prolonged sabbaticals - these were not academics, either. Their sojourns have ranged in length from 4 to 12 months. Some of the time was spent traveling, some relaxing at home. Inevitably, the time off and the traveling changed them in both subtle and not-so-subtle ways.
Thus the appeal to me was several fold. First, I LOVE to travel, from the initial planning to booking tickets to figuring out hotels, to actually taking the trip. Secondly, then being 46, it was time to take stock of my life, to assess where I was, and to lay out a grand scheme for the future. Third, the timing was right. My consultant work was nearing a natural break, my wife desired to reassess her career choices as well. We actually had saved some money in past several years. I never took that pre-college, during-college, post-college European youth circuit trip. And I always regretted it. Now was the time. It’ll never be easier than now. We went for it.
And it was everything we had hoped for, and less, and more. The overriding benefit, and one which came as a surprise to me, was the clarity of thought and of memory that overtook me during the time away. The routine of our everyday life, it seems to me, also puts our mind and thoughts into a routine. The complexity of modern life requires automatic responses and lulls the brain into autopilot. The ever changing realities of travel, especially in foreign countries with different languages, currencies and cultural norms, quickly moves one from routine to real-time response on a minute-by-minute basis. Nothing is taken for granted. The brain has to keep up with the surroundings, processing new scenes, calculating costs, translating street signs and bus schedules and newspaper headlines. “What restaurant do we eat at?” can no longer rely on memories of the local eateries around home but requires sifting through a new world of strange storefronts, menus in Spanish, Portuguese and French, and, in the end, taking a calculated stab in the dark. “What do we do tomorrow?” or “Do we do anything tomorrow?” requires thought, new information from a plethora of travel guides, info from the hotel front desk and attention to one’s own and one’s partner’s state of being.
I was amazed at how quickly I forgot about work. I’ve heard from colleagues who have taken similar leaves of absence that it can take a month to put one’s “old” life on hold and begin focusing totally on the trip. For me, it happened by the time we reached our hotel in Barcelona, within 24 hours of leaving home for the airport. And it only took a few more days for the random thoughts to start occurring - thoughts of schoolmates not thought of for 25 years, of events in one’s long repressed memories that explain who I am now and why I react the way I do to certain stimuli, of opportunities taken and missed. Over the four months we were gone, not only did I get a break from the routine of life, but my thought processes were able to break out of their stiffened shape and renew their flexibility. The cobwebs being gone, new connections were made. It was a pleasant surprise, an invaluable consequence.
That said, the trip was fun, too, as expected. Food, people, drink, sights, smells, sounds, history, ceremony, exhilaration, rest, spectacle, music, dance, ferries. Oh, yeah, ferries. See, we live on an island, albeit with a bridge off of one end. But ferries connect us with downtown Seattle and make up a large portion of the attractiveness of living here. I’ve always been a ferry junkie. And during the course of our four-month trip, we took ferries in Spain, Madeira, Portugal, France and Scotland, ranging from 15-minute river crossings on the Portuguese-Spanish border to a five-hour journey to the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. From small 10-car ferries to large ships carrying over a thousand passengers. Oh, I could write on and on about this, but I digress …
What’s important to remember is to follow your interests while traveling and not to worry about missing “must-see sights” that are not really of interest or if the timing’s just not right. You can always go back as your interests change. If you’re not a real museum junkie, then don’t focus your trip on all of the must-see museums in Paris. Pick one that’s of particular interest to you - whether the L’Orangie for Monet fans like me, or the Orsey for lovers of old train stations whether you like “art” or not, or to even less touristed spots. Spend an hour or two or more or less, then just start strolling the streets of Paris. Sidewalk cafes beckon, tour boats cruise by on the Seine, the Eiffel Tower looms over all, and the Solemnity of Wednesday nights at Notre Dame call. Travel YOUR way, at YOUR pace, following YOUR interests, spending YOUR money and YOUR time and you will end up with YOUR memories, YOUR favorite spots and YOUR experiences. Journey On!