Trips and Travel

Pike's Peak, as seen from the Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, CO

There’s a whole world out there beyond the small world we live in.

Traveling gives you a chance to leave your comfort zone, getaway from it all, experience different cultures, see new things, and explore places you’ve never been before.

When you venture out and leave the familiar behind, you gain a whole new perspective. The world was meant to be explored, not imagined. Seeing it for yourself—actually being in places you’ve only heard or read about—opens your eyes and mind in amazing ways. You can’t help but come back changed, refreshed, recharged.

“The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality; and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.” —Samuel Johnson

Just about everyone lists travel as one of the things they love and want to do.

Tom and I are fortunate. We travel. We aren’t world travelers—that is, we don’t globe trot or take extended vacations to exotic locations—but our trips have taken us near and far on some glorious and memorable adventures.

Many people we know talk about traveling. They plan to do it just as soon as they save the money, find the time, or you-name-the-excuse. What they don’t realize is that you can experience the joys of traveling without going to foreign or exotic lands. Some of the most interesting places we’ve visited have been close to home.

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” —Henry Miller

Weekend trips—anywhere within a two or three hour drive—are great ways to getaway from it all without (1) having to go too far or (2) spending much in time or money. Check your local library or the Internet for attractions in your area. We do. A little research always turns up stuff close to home that’s worth seeing. Even being a tourist in our own hometown—seeing the sights, walking the downtown area, exploring the parks, and looking for things we’ve never seen before—has proven to be fun and memorable.

There is no better way to experience the world or be inspired by it, than travel.

Your destination is not so important as your decision to go. If you want to travel, you have to just do it. Once, when I couldn’t make up my mind on whether or not to take a trip, my daughter said, “If you buy the ticket, you’ll have no choice but to go.”

Just buy the ticket.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things 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.” —Mark Twain

Happy travels,

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