This past summer while working with a former co-worker, I was just casually talking about visiting someplace this year, and then another little trip coming up.
He expressed dismay at the thought of going camping in another country (I live in Canada and we like to camp in the U.S. sometimes), or flying 1 hour to New York City for a few days of fun, or attending a business conference in Texas that’s related to your hobby or side-hustle.
He went on to say he’d only left the province we live in once for a trip to the Caribbean, and that without this current job we were in, he would never have even left the town we were in.
Imagine for a second the complete foreign concept that both of us were expressing to each other. For him, the idea of even leaving his home town by driving for 10 minutes was almost unthinkable. For me, the idea of not driving 6 or 8 hours to visit family in another state was unthinkable.
Both are not wrong, per se. I can understand different people are raised in a different way. But at a certain point, as you grow up, you have to realize you’re free to try new things and open your horizons.
In fact, as I write that, it made me reflect upon how as a teenager, I would regularly buy train or bus tickets & travel to other cities several hours away. Or hop in a car with friends on a Friday night and drive 2 or 3 hours to visit other friends, not even knowing where we’d be sleeping that night.
Are those baby steps to opening up the normalcy of flying to other countries or driving 30 hours across one’s own country, just to see what it looks like?
Yes, even when I didn’t have much money to travel, I’d take my wife and kids out somewhere for an overnight trip every 3 or 4 or 6 months. My thoughts are: if you can’t afford to travel the world like some millionaire Instagram traveler, at least see your own backyard. Find a $70/night hotel in the place you want to go, and go see your own province/state/country.
I’m convinced that you could travel to a new town within 4 hours of your house 4 to 12 times per year for the next 25 years, and never run out of places to see. (continued below)
You need it for broadening your horizons. For opening your mind. To jumpstart creativity. To live life a little.
Whatever your circumstances, any little day trip is all you need to accomplish the end result: a more full life.
Where have you been lately? Or a big trip you remember from years before? Where’s your next adventure?
- Ep92-How Do You Deal With Toxic People? - March 12, 2020
- Ep91-Do Your Powers Astonish You? - March 10, 2020
- Ep90-Do You Stand Up To Obstacles? - March 9, 2020
Hi I’m doing great
That’s great, Clay! Why you so great?