Finding and Doing What Makes You Happy Is Important

My parents both loved to travel and my mom’s outlook on life included the perspective of “it’s good to have something to look forward to.”  My dad was a wildlife biologist, so a good deal of our family vacations involved driving from Western Montana up to Alberta, Canada. We would spend our early mornings and evenings driving through Jasper National Park looking for wildlife and eating lunch from our cooler at Lake Louise. We always saw lots of elk, deer and bears as we meandered along our way around Jasper and Banff. There was a hotel in Banff that we always stayed at that was constructed out of redwood and it had a camera in the pool area so that parents could watch their children swim (best case scenario) from the comfort of the hotel room and that was very novel to me at the time. We shopped at all the stores in Banff and always hauled extra Terry’s orange chocolates, Mackintosh Toffee Bars and H&P Steak Sauce back across the border. My mom was more adventurous than my dad and despite his refusal to travel to Disney Land, San Francisco, and Seattle, that did not stop my mom from taking my brother and myself on these adventures which often included my aunt and cousins. Having the opportunity to travel as a child opened a world full of new sites, sounds and fun.

Travel is a hobby and outlet that both my husband and I worked hard to share with our own children and is something that we still immensely enjoy today. I would rather have experiences than “things.”  My husband and I had the opportunity to spend almost two weeks in Italy, Malta, and Greece this past summer. We travelled with my brother and sister-in-law, and it was the trip of a lifetime. We toured Rome, Italy for three days and then spent nine days cruising the Mediterranean. We ate gelato in the streets of Rome and used the ancient fountain drinking systems in the region, had baklava in small cafes tucked on winding streets in Greece, and soaked in all the beautiful history, art, architecture of the Mediterranean. This trip was an anniversary celebration for my brother and sister-in-law, and a nod to my parents as well. They would have loved having their family share this amazing adventure.

I have no intention of waiting until retirement to enjoy life and for me, travel is something that brings me enjoyment. I want to see as much as I can while I am able. While stumbling along the stone pathways of Pompeii this summer, it occurred to me that this wonderful vacation could have looked much different if we had waited until retirement to take it. I don’t know if we would have been able to climb all the steps we did, manage the uneven terrain, and even have the desire to brave the heat and crowds. On this trip, we walked almost 20,000 steps per day over uneven surfaces in 90 degrees plus weather. I ate my body weight in gelato and pasta daily for two weeks and managed to lose two pounds. We did long tours and saw as much as possible because we had no guarantee that we would have another opportunity to be in this area of the world again. We did not want to miss anything, and I am grateful to have had this amazing experience.

I think my mom was right, it is good to have something to look forward to and for me that means adventure and travel. I love the whole travel process. I love the research that goes into planning a vacation – deciding on what time of year to go, sites to see, where to stay, how to get there and so forth. I also love the feeling of excitement and even a little fear that comes with travelling to a “new to me” part of the world. As I reflect back on our fabulous trip to Italy, I am happily plotting out our next adventures to Florida and the southern Caribbean. There are rumbles of an England, Spain, and Portugal adventure in the next two years and I am at a loss to even consider how this could be a bad idea. Life is short and the world is big!