Everything and Not So Much

How Travel Opens Your Eyes and Heart

So here’s the thing. Once you go down the travel rabbit hole, there is no turning back.

We’ve been married coming up on 30 years .. brought 8 kids into the world and for the first 20+ years of this adventure, we were pretty much head down trying to keep up with life. Around about the time COVID showed up, that shell was showing signs of cracking a bit. In part, we were becoming a least a little bit financially stable. In part, we were starting to thin the herd as kids flew the nest.

The last, say, 36 months have been a joyride to make up for lost time. Some trips with kids, some just us as a couple, but a marked departure from the shell. We’ve visited mountains and oceans, but domestic and those a far away places. I think, other than the scenery of course, it that everywhere you go is home to someone else and it looks quite grand. And that makes me wonder - since we reside in something of a tourist trap town - are we overlooking things in our own proverbial back yard.

Of course we are and it is too easy to discount that as you dine in an open air beach adjacent eatery … or any other plethora of activities you do while you are traveling that you don’t bother to do “at home”.

That said … I think what I love most about our travels is it makes me feel more connected to home. It seems to be native to the human condition that we’re always looking for that greener grass. What I find over and over again though is the people I meet are far more like me and far less as different as we imagine them.

There’s a lesson there.