My world was once black and white. Then, one day, I stepped onto a plane that went half way around the world.
Everything changed. Now, when I'm asked why we travel, it's hard to explain in words. I'll let the colors tell you...
Like most travelers, we aren't made of unlimited money (wouldn't a trust fund be nice!). We save cash a lot of ways, from traveling during shoulder season, to bargaining and living more like locals.
There are times, though, that it makes sense to splurge a little and tell your inner Ebeneezer Scrooge to get lost.
How do you know when to tell your inner cheapskate to take a flying leap?
Are you sitting at a desk, staring at a computer monitor and dreaming of traveling? Thinking about seeing your screen savers in real life? You aren't alone. Mini retirements and gap years for adults are becoming more and more popular.Here are ten reasons to take a career break and travel. Right Now.
People often ask me why I travel, and why it's so important to me. It's not about climbing the tallest mountain, or getting bragging rights by visiting dozens of countries. I love travel because of how it changes and enriches me. It makes me a better person.
I grew up in a little prairie town in the middle of Canada. Travel wasn't part of my childhood, and I never truly thought it would be a reality for me. I saw travel as too expensive, too exotic and just too far outside of my experience.
I dreamed of traveling, but I set my dream aside for the more practical things. Buying a house. University and graduate school. Responsibility. The status quo. Security. A stable job.
Life wasn't bad. But it just wasn't... good. I was going through the motions, living someone else's idea of what my life should be.
Something changed when I ...
Some days, like today, when I need some inspiration, I like to take out my travel quote collection.
Hopefully, they give you a smile, or even inspire your adventure.
1. Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen. Benjamin Disraeli
2. When we get out of the glass bottle of our ego and when we escape like the squirrels in the cage of our personality and get into the forest again, we shall shiver with cold and fright. But things will happen to us so that we don’t know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in. D. H. Lawrence
3. Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it. Cesare Pavese
4. No matter how you travel, it's still you going. Jeff Goldblum
Before our kids and even before he was my husband, Charles and I spent a year traveling in South East Asia, Australia and New Zealand. We dove the Great Barrier Reef, saw ancient Angkor temples in Cambodia, and watched wild orangutans playing in the Sumatran jungle.
We came out of that with a commitment: We weren't going to live a conventional life. It was travel for us; the open road and all that it offers. We were going to be digital nomads.
We made a plan: travel every winter, and come back to Canada in the summers to earn some money, enjoy the sun, and visit family.
And then we had children...
I wrote this post a few years ago, after we came back from an extended trip across South East Asia, New Zealand and Australia.
Some things have changed. Today, I have two great kids, and I've moved to British Columbia, Canada, one of the most gorgeous areas I've seen in my travels, and where I can see the mountains everyday. But I still struggle with that surreal juxtaposition of our adventurous, nomadic travels, and returning to our so-called normal, everyday life in Canada. And Cosmo still cuddles us at night.