On the Beauty of Travel

I love to travel. I have travelled all over the United States in the last 20 years. Big trips and little trips. I’ve yet to travel outside of the country. There are various reasons for this, but I’m hoping to get overseas in the next couple of years. A large majority of my travel, particularly in the last decade, has been solo. It’s less stressful for me than travelling with someone else. I get to make all my own decisions and cater only to my own wants and needs. But more than that, I find something so incredibly empowering in being alone in a strange place. Facing the fear of having to rely only on myself. Of having no one that I know within reach. It forces me to be friendly and open and talk to complete strangers. I’m not shy exactly, but I tend to not feel the need to interact with people.

I’ve been on so many trips, but the one that always sticks out in my mind as the perfect trip happened in September 2016. It was a ten-day solo road-trip from Salt Lake City straight across to Crescent City, CA. Then, I followed Highway 101 all the way up the Oregon and Washington coasts to Astoria. I cut across to the I-5 and went up past Seattle and on to Whidbey Island. After that I took the most direct route back to Salt Lake (mostly because I was running short on time). Other than the route I was going to take, and the hotel I stayed in the first night, I didn’t make any plans. I let myself be taken a bit off course by anything that really caught my attention. I stopped when I got tired and found places to stay where I landed. When I was hungry, I asked the locals where to eat (they always know the best places). I drove as much or as little as I wanted in any given day.

There was a lot of driving with the window down and loud, obnoxious singing in the car. A lot of talking to myself. Some crying. Some yelling. It was a freeing experience. I’d been having a rough time of it when I took the trip. Because of that, there is a melancholy-type feeling that hovers over all my memories of it. The days of driving on my own (and it was a lot of driving) helped me to remember who I was, something I fear I had lost for a while. It holds a place in my mind as THE trip for others to live up to. I will never be able to recreate it. But that’s ok. I don’t think moments like that are meant to be recreated.

With any travel, alone or otherwise, something that I find so fascinating is the variety of things I see, feel, and experience when on the road. You never know what you are going to run across. If you are open to it, the adventures you come across are amazing. The sights you see are amazing. The people you meet are amazing. As you travel, the energy of places feel different from one to another, the culture changes, and your perspectives are broadened. It can be transformative. But something that I never expected, is that no matter where you go, no matter how much variety there is, people are just people. The way we interact with each other and how we feel about our relationships and our homes are the same. Taken with all the differences, all the similarities are just as amazing to me.

As much travelling as I’ve done, there are so many places I still want to go. So many adventures still to be had. I know that I’ll continue to strive to experience as much as I can, as long as I’m able. My feet are itching as I type this. I haven’t gone on a substantial trip in over a year. I had been planning one to Sequoia National Park this summer, but with everything that is going on in the world, I don’t think it’s going to happen. As of right now, a lot of stuff that I wanted to see isn’t accessible, and I’ve been asked by my company to not plan more than a couple days off in a row for the interim.

For now, the trips will have to be short and sweet. The destinations not so exotic compared to my day-to-day, but there is something to be said for that as well. I read an article many years ago (so many years in fact that I can’t remember where it was from, who wrote it, or what it was called) in which the author urged the reader to step into their neighborhood and look at it with the eyes of a tourist. It’s amazing what a slight change of perspective can do. For example, I remember my hometown as tiny and boring and full of memories, not all good. But if I think about it in the terms of someone seeing it for the first time, it changes everything. It’s not tiny, it’s. Nostalgic of a lost, simpler time. The surrounding countryside is beautiful, the people friendly, and there is something wonderful about most of the businesses being family owned. And so, I will take this advise and find the wonder in the mundane around me. Which is good advice to live by, whether you’re travelling or not.

Thanks for reading. The pictures are just some random ones from various adventures I’ve had. The first set are all from my Oregon trip. I don’t claim to be a good photographer, particularly because all of them where taken with a cell phone, but I hope you enjoy them just the same.

I’d love to hear about some of your adventures, drop me a line.

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