The State of My State - Travel
It just seems exotic to me….far-flung for this U.S.-centric human.
To me, travel is one of the most reliably transcendent experiences in life. It correllates that it is one of my most favorite things to do. And for me, 2023 is a major year of travel. I'll use this blog to share my stories.
A big piece of leaving employment almost a year ago for me was to make the time for travel - travel to see family and friends, travel for fun. The trips of 2022 included three roughly month-long road trips to my home state of Minnesota, the Tennessee mountains for a retreat and more visits, CA for a healthy dose of the Pacific and more visits, and Buffalo, NY for architecture and urban exploration.
All of this activity was planned, and that plan reserved 2023 to make time for an epic trip, counted in months instead of days or weeks. I've begun to seriously plan that epic trip, to Australia and New Zealand, for the second half of this year.
I 've observed that not everyone enjoys travelling the same way. There are people out there for whom travel is not a high priority, or they might enjoy travel but prefer to stay in the U.S., for short durations, or they might prefer travel that is very comfortable. I love challenging travel. Generally speaking, the further away the better, either culturally or geographically. I love to spend at least a month on the ground, to fully immerse myself in a country or a trip. Fly 20 hours in an airplane? I'll do it gladly. Backpacks, minimalist accommodations, open air markets, endless walking and hiking, local bakeries, buses or trains to small towns, I love it all. Then, I love to come home and see it with fresh eyes.
When I travel, I enter a flow state. It is all about discovery and curiosity, landscapes and skylines, vistas and details, people and anonymity. I long to be surrounded by new or exceptional sights and spaces, to immerse myself in new experiences, all of which heighten every moment.
Australia and New Zealand have long captured my imagination - they are at the top of my list. They fulfill many of the criteria for distance, in location, landscapes and spirit. I love islands (and small continents! with so much beach and coastline!), desert, rainforest, and the thought of seeing wildlife species that exist nowhere else in the world. I can't resist the opportunity to see the gorgeous landscapes that were the setting of the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. And the cultures there; both countries have reputations as being very livable, and both are striving to balance indigenous foundations in ways that seem to outpace the U.S., and I hope to learn from them.
I'm looking at a late spring departure, which is late fall Down Under, and the planning is in full swing right now. I'm reading as many websites and Facebook posts as possible for background, hints and tips.
I was fortunate to travel with folks from Adelaide on a trip through Myanmar, and on a second trip there as well, and we became good friends. so Adelaide is a priority. After two visits with me in Boston, it is long overdue for me to visit them in Australia. I'd planned to be there in 2020 and we all know what happened. I'll treasure the chance to see them, spend time with them, and get the insiders' view of the country through their eyes, especially after our many discussions of the similarities and differences between Oz and the U.S.
My next priority after Adelaide is Darwin. The heat, the strange landscapes - I'm fascinated. Given those two guiderails, the rough outline is to "start" in Adelaide and work my way counterclockwise chasing warmer weather - Melbourne, Sidney, Cairns, to Darwin, then Brisbane to NZ.
One of the hard parts of this planning is thinking about two separate countries and two visits of long duration at once. Conceptually I've been thinking six months would be the right amount of time. Looking at it in detail, it seems like a very long time! Then I started to draft a rough schedule, allocating weeks to the various cities/regions I want to go to, and I run out of weeks very quickly. This stage of trip planning is always a bit of a balancing act - what to book first? The flight? The hotels? For the flights, the prices literally change by the hour - how to pick the right time to buy? I try to remember the job is not to optimize but to do well, i.e. "perfect is the enemy of good". Anticipation and research are almost as fun as the travel itself.
My passport renewal application is at the State Department, and I have a new backpack that is a perfect carryon size, and I'll get to test drive it in ten days in San Francisco - more on that soon.
How do you feel about travel? Do you like long trips or short? Near or far? What is on your dream list?
