This blog started out as a five year project, intended to track my journey to explore our world from the day I turned 45 to my 50th birthday. In those five years, I set out a mission for myself to be a more adventurous traveler than I had been in my first 45 years on this planet. It was both a commitment to myself to broaden my horizons but it's also ended up being a diary of where I have been, what I have seen and what impressions I have had on my travels. It is my memory bank when I can no longer retain all the memories of these trips in my mind.
It was intended to be a catalyst to get me out of North America and Europe and into parts of the world I had not yet visited. I didn't have any preconceived list of where those five years would take me, but I committed to setting foot in at least two of the five continents I had not yet visited and going to at least one place that would have totally freaked me out in the past.
It worked. And I decided close to the end of the original five year commitment that I didn't want to stop. So I haven't. This commitment to myself has taken me further than I ever could have imagined into spots that I had no idea that I would end up traveling. It's allowed me to see places more gorgeous, meet people more amazing and experience places more intriguing and interesting than I ever could have imagined. It's forced me to stretch and challenge myself, which was really the whole point to begin with.
I've spent a lot of time since I turned 45 on the road. And by the road I mean in cars, on foot, in trains, on planes, on boats and on surfboards. I've expanded my global footprint north, south, east and west. I've eaten foods I never would have imagined eating and loved it. I've found favorite cities and favorite countries and tried to do everything I've wanted when I've been wherever I was with absolutely no regrets. Well, maybe one or two. That reluctance to let go completely of all inhibitions still haunts me once every while.
When I made the decision to keep going with this odyssey, I debated whether or not I should change the title of this blog. I decided not to. The Five Years commitment I originally made was special; it jump-started something in my life and so rather than re-naming it "Five Plus Years" or "Ten Years" or whatever, I'm sticking with the original. Who knows where or when this will really end. I'd love to keep searching for something new or reveling in some place that I love over and over again until I can no longer physically do it or can no longer afford it. Hopefully neither of those will come any time soon.
It worked. And I decided close to the end of the original five year commitment that I didn't want to stop. So I haven't. This commitment to myself has taken me further than I ever could have imagined into spots that I had no idea that I would end up traveling. It's allowed me to see places more gorgeous, meet people more amazing and experience places more intriguing and interesting than I ever could have imagined. It's forced me to stretch and challenge myself, which was really the whole point to begin with.
I've spent a lot of time since I turned 45 on the road. And by the road I mean in cars, on foot, in trains, on planes, on boats and on surfboards. I've expanded my global footprint north, south, east and west. I've eaten foods I never would have imagined eating and loved it. I've found favorite cities and favorite countries and tried to do everything I've wanted when I've been wherever I was with absolutely no regrets. Well, maybe one or two. That reluctance to let go completely of all inhibitions still haunts me once every while.
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| Flying over Bavaria on the first trip of this blog, June 2013. |
If anyone out there is wanting to do anything that might thrill them somewhere far or close to home, my advice would do just go do it no matter how scary or silly or self-indulgent or trivial it might seem. Go! Explore! I sometimes read books to inform my travels before I go places. I found a Mark Twain quote in one of them that goes like this.
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
I realized a couple of years into this journey that I agreed with that quote wholeheartedly. Anyone who's ever dreamed of someplace different from wherever they have been should try someday to get away and see something different. This blog has changed my perspective on the world in so many ways. I know I am so fortunate.
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| The view from the train on final approach to Venice, April 2015. |
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