Breaking out of Routine - July 2003 Newsletter

I love to travel but go home to play with my dog, reconnect with my baseline reality, and research my next trip. Also the routine housekeeping everyone needs to do. Weddings of grandchildren, baptisms of greatgrandchildren, etc. Meeting new people and seeing new places is wonderful, just not an excuse to never go home.

I went on a world trip from October last year till April this year..and it is true, when you come back you realize once again how much routine you left behind. I had a great time, but I also had many moments during that trip where I just wanted to be home in my own private room and do boring things like meeting up with old friends for a drink..where the dorm beds and hostel showers drove me nuts, where I wanted to see familiar faces instead of meeting new ones every night..I don´t want to miss one single day of my trip, but I also appreciated coming home again.

I had a very conventional lifestyle - beautiful home, nice furniture, my husband went out to earn the income and I stayed at home with the children. Then life changed - the children were flying from the nest, and in March 1999 I by myself to Europe for the first time in quarter of a century. Such wonderful freedom, the opportunity to travel and see so much history, meet many people from diverse walks of life across the generations. I extended my time away too long and am now divorced.

Over the last four and half years I have travelled extensively and think I shall continue to do so for the rest of my life, but there is also an underlying need for a base. After staying with friends, in residential jobs, and maintaining an expensive apartment in London whilst galavanting around I would once more like a place in this world which is “my home”. So I have decided to buy a place in the south of France which needs some work (quite a lot of work!) which will keep me busy and occupied for a while.

Ideally it may be nice to meet someone, or others, who may also like to share this base and contribute constructively by painting, gardening but how one finds suitable, congenial, bona fide, qualified companions is probably easier said than done.

Personally I think I’m probably a bit of a middle-aged gypsy who wants somewhere to come back to where you are not an emcumbrance on others. The suggestion has been made that I consider developing the French property into a B & B or backpackers hostel. All food for thought, but one step at a time.

I think travel gets into your blood, it’s good to stop awhile, but who knows what lies around the next corner. Sometimes it takes courage to move on.

Not a day goes by without thinking about my next adventure. I find myself planning another trip while still on my current adventure. I look at life as a series of adventures with a little down time and work mixed in the middle. It is fun to get home and hang out with friends and kayak the familiar river and streams, maybe a couple of camping trips at a local park just to tease me, but it’s back on the road as soon as possible. Happy trails

We appreciate traveling because we don’t do it all the time. If all we did was travel, we’d have to find some kind of vacation from that… because THAT would be your everyday life. I think it’s important to get back to your everyday routine (the office, taking out the trash, waking up at the same time everyday) because otherwise, what would we get away from when we vacation? Travel is special because we don’t do it everyday. I can’t imagine not getting back from a great trip and start planning the next one. There’s something about being home again that awakens the traveler in me.

when I travel I want routine,get stuck in routine,I want travel(like a relationship)solution:2 to 6 weeks intensive courses(language,fitness training,orienteering,cooking,work at a hostel)they are all over

It’s true, that when I am travelling, all I want to do is to continue on the path….but the last trips I took, I began to realize that I have an invisible ‘elastic band’ that wants to snap me home after about two and a half months on the road. If I try to stay ‘out’ longer, inevitably disasters start to happen!! By this time most of my clothes are rags, I get sick or have a minor accident, I start losing or misplacing things… something nasty happens… now I am ok with this, and since I am aware of it, I can plan for it because I think at some level, I am craving the stability of home, my dog, my messy house, my ‘other life’. When I get home it takes me months to record and assimilate my trip, and of course I am thinking about the next one. Arriving home in spring is an spectacular event, because spring and summer where I live attracts tourists and travellers from all over the world and a wonderful place to be…..For me, its easy to balance…spring/summer is for home, and winter is for travelling….

This question is something I’ve been thinking more about over the past couple years. I’ve was bit hard by the travel bug in my early 20’s and have been plotting and planning trips ever since. I lived in Australia for a year, was a nanny in different parts of the U.S., and last year I took a trip of 2 weeks or more almost every other month. I’m definitely not independently wealthy, but travel has been my priority and all the money I save tends to be directed towards it. I started to wonder if I needed to check myself into “travel addicts anonymous.”

Traveling has served as the best education and confidence booster I could have ever asked for, not to mention all of the wonderful friendships I’ve made throughout the world. On the flip side, I think it also can be an easy escape from the “real world” at times, and if one is not careful you can miss out on all the wonderful things planting roots and staying close to home can offer. I think I’ll always be a “travel junkie” at heart, but having experienced so many different cultures and countries, I’ve also come to appreciate how wonderful home is and how precious friends and family are.

That need to explore and experience the unknown of a foreign country is ingrained in me and is something I don’t think I’ll ever lose. Even more powerful, however, is coming home to the familiar faces and hugs of loved ones, being surrounded by the laughter of friends and family, and of course nothing beats your own bed and a mouth watering home cooked meal!

I think it depends, not only, on ‘why’ you travel but ‘how’ you travel. On my recent 3 month trip in the southern hemisphere I met quite a few people who had developed a travelling routine. Doing the same sort of things they do at home (ie getting pissed) and just ticking off the key sites to visit.

What can make travelling really special is to have an explicit purpose (thinking it through), maybe to do with your personal development, something that is not so easy to do at home.

If you are not changed, to some extent, by your travelling or if you leave the places you visit worse than you found them, maybe you have dragged too much of your work-a-day life with you.

I guess that I enjoy ALL the phases of travel; a good deal of which happens at “home”. Typically, I spend as much time researching, preparing and visualizing a trip as I do on the journey itself. I love the anticipation, the outline of a plan and then watching it all come together. Then, there is the return when I share what I have experienced with friends and family through conversations, photos and souvenirs. Usually, the germ of an idea for another trip grows from the memories of the last one or from the thoughts of other returning travellers who are just “resting up” at home, relating their tales to me.

All the while I am at home I dream of the days when I’ll be traveling again. And when I am off traveling I can’t wait to be back home where everything I know waits for me. I two contradicting feelings sometimes make me feel crazy. There’s that excitement of travel and that sadness for what gets left behind and though neither ever wins out against the other it is a hard struggle to try to forget both and be content with the moment I am in whether it is at home or in distant lands.

Its like that Mlife commercial ask “why do we travel distant lands only to search out familiar faces?”

I have no idea why I do it. All I know is that it is something I feel I need to do. The idea of not traveling makes feel ill.

On the other hand, I hope that eventually this desire to see distant lands slowly burns itself out as one day I would like to plant roots. But like I said I want the desire to slowly burn out because the “me” of right now does not want to ever quit traveling, it is the “Me” of later that will want it. I figure if the desire to travel burns itself out slowly the ‘’me” of now will not notice it and the “me” of later will appreciate it. Or it could be that the “me” of later wants the desire to burn out slowly so the “me” of now doesn’t put up a fight. I don’t quite understand it all. It can get pretty complicated (actually it made more sense in my head). All I know is that I need to travel.

Really enjoy reading these thoughtful and insightful reflections on why people travel.

I have to agree with Laura Boschen that travel provides the best education and boosts the confidence level tremendously.

Travel changed my life - actually and literally. Exposure to various cultures and peoples jolted my self perception several notches up. It helped me move out of the nest to another country, another life where I spent time discovering myself through others. In the process, I learned more about our world, its inhabitants and my place in it - always changing, renewing, adding and deleting. And I learned that people are very much the same inside.

I have a dream - that every student spend a year in another part of the earth. Countries would work together to make this possible. It’s a dream and, I think, a good one.

This topic is a timely one for me. i’ve been planning a trip to NZ for months now. as it draws near, i’m having second thoughts and doubts. i’ll be going alone, i want to do a lot of “tramping”. but it is hard, so hard, to tear oneself away from the familiar. i haven’t done a ‘major’ journey in years…

SO, reading all these comments about the reasons for travel are reminding me why i enjoy travel so much and are helping to fortify my resolve. the hardest steps are the first ones…

gina

This question is easy, I hate to travel especially by car. I just got back from a trip to vegas and had a great time, but was also glad to get home. My routine may be a little dull at times but the thought of traveling all the time doesn’t inspire me a bit. I didn’t think the airport security check was too bad, my Granddaughter had the best idea she wore sandals so removing your shoes was easy.

One thing I’ve learned in my 21 years on this planet is the value of the Buddha’s wisdom: Follow the middle path.

After six months of backpacking around europe, being in some of the “world’s most exciting cities”, trains, biking, hiking, daily adventure, one day I just got tired of it all and just wanted lay in bed and read a trashy novel. I was saturated and just wanted to go home to comfort and routine. Of course here I am years later dreaming about the endless days of travel ahead during retirement.

Werd? Sorry
I have been curious as to the majority opinion on this matter for years now… I always thought that maybe my view was scewed due to an “unusual upbringing”… moving to a new bed every few months… we were regular gypsies, my family and I. Always in the eastern US, always with the entire family, and never staying long enough for any of us to plant roots. We never had a house up until a few years ago, only cars, apartments, borrowed beds, and, sometimes, barns Personally, I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way…. because of being raised in a constantly changing environment and surrounded by booted and wandering folk… I’ve recently discovered that my roots lie in the road itself. The new faces are instantly familar, instantly family.. I am able to see people, innately, as my brothers and sisters. There is nothing to miss.. home has always been, literally, wherever we chose to make it I do, of course, know routine and whatnot like anyone else… but some people forget; You take it all with you or leave it behind. It’s your call.

*insert favorite clever/ fitting/ time- tested cliche here*
I wish you all the gift of discovering the home you have inside you
Sunrises y’all

WEll <I TRAVELED ALL OVER NORTHEREN CAL. and stayed in many places Sacramento was my last stop. the heat was too much. So now <i am back at my <home base in <monterey County . the cool breeze the fog is welcome.. and my friends.. take care. <i love travel . maybe in a month or two <i´ll be off to Washington State. jeanie

After I first went to Paris for school when I was 21 I was hooked on travelling. I went to Europe as much as I could, then spread out to Mexico and the Caribbean. Now I live in the Middle East and I have a myriad of opportunities that I never thought I would.

But as I get older I sometimes worry about not travelling enough. Or maybe that I still travel, but at a higher level without the hardships of earlier years. Better hotels, better food, always taking the ‘easy’ way out. I’m not the kind of person to take a tour or a cruise, but I find myself liking a bit more luxury each year. Plus as the years go by we seem to get more used to routines, to being at home, even to having little luxuries that aren’t always available on the road.

These are some of the reasons why I keep leaving. If we dont’ stimulate ourselves and try new things we stagnate–physically and mentally.

Ideally I think that we can never travel enough. But to really enjoy new places and people we have to keep a fine balance between travelling and our daily routine. Without some downtime we would have nothing to compare to those great times.

Just for a note: To renew my skills on the road I’m going bakcpacking solo in South America this fall. I can’t wait!