Yep, this is us – once again, on a plane! We’re off on the next stage of our adventure, heading from Denver to California where we’re going to catch up with friends and with my folks for a little while before heading north to jump on our Alaska cruise! Amazingly, shockingly, we’re more than halfway through our adventure that we’ve jokingly nicknamed “The Saling World Tour ’13″ {if you want to see more on this, check out the Summer ’13 tab}. It’s bringing us closer to Hawaii and getting settled, but at the same time…I don’t want it to end!
I’ve learned a lot of things on this trip about the wonderful places we’ve gone, but more than anything, I’ve learned a lot about myself. I just wanted to share with you a few of the things I’ve learned about myself while traveling.
1. I want the “AND” experience. So you’ve probably seen the clever/annoying “and” Coke Zero commercial, where an actor gets a variety of amazing options laid out before him and asks, “And?” Yeah, I travel like that. Every time I start looking at options for a trip, where we can do A and B and C, I find myself asking, “And?” It isn’t that I want to do everything there is to do in a place – although it may seem like that sometimes! It’s that I want the “AND” experience. What extra thing can we do on this trip to move it from a great trip to something over-the-top fabulous? Life should be lived like that.
2. I love the story. It isn’t enough anymore to just see interesting things. I want to know why they’re there. I want to know why the Italians built Renaissance structures on top of medieval churches on top of Roman ruins, incorporating everything together. I want to know why the best Irish pub I’ve ever been to is sitting right outside Notre Dame on the Isle de Paris. I want to know what drew Gaudi and his art to Barcelona. The experience is so much richer when stories come with it.
3. I’m a wannabe local. Just as I don’t want to dine at a chain restaurant when there’s an awesome local eatery to patronize, I don’t want to do just the things that tourists do. You don’t experience a place that way. I want to know what the folks who live there, work there, love there, do to have fun, the kind of things they would put on their bucket list for that locale. Granted, I think it’s necessary to see the tourist attractions just to be conversant about them, but in order to really experience a place, you need to get as close to living it as you can.
4. I’m looking for roots. I vaguely know what it’s like to be from someplace, and I like it. But because my family is from so many places and so many pieces of heritage, it’s hard to really feel like I’m from anywhere. I don’t know what this persistent need is in me to identify with somewhere or something, but it’s in there. Everywhere I go, I’m always looking to connect with a little piece of me, and it’s such a joy when I find it!
5. Food. It’s always about food. I’m a foodie. I’m from a family of foodies. We just like to eat, okay? And to my way of thinking, there’s no better way to understand a place, a culture, and a people than by sitting down around a table and breaking bread, biscotti, naan, pain du chocolat…you get the idea. Food and the appreciation of food has opened up a whole new way to explore places for me, and I’m especially proud that I’ve gotten my husband hooked on this as well. When he first moved in with me, it was easier to count the things he actually WOULD eat as opposed to what he didn’t like, but now it’s quite the reverse.
How about you, all my frequent-traveler friends out there? What have YOU learned about yourselves while traveling?
