The thing about travel is it’s meant to free you. Make you feel liberated, alive, inspired. It’s meant to be new, an experience that’s different from what you normally experience. So…if you do the same things you always do when you travel, you may be cheating yourself out of everything that adventure could be.
Everybody thinks they’ve got a tip when it comes to scoring the best deals on trips: book flights on a Tuesday, clear your cache so “they” don’t know you really want the flight, book hotel and airfare together, book four months in advance—no four days in advance. Ugh. The mixed signals are enough to set anyone crazy and make them just book what they see when they see it, deal or no deal.
I may be different or freakishly travel-crazed or whatever it is, but being free for only 31 percent of my life (weekends + 10 vacation days ÷ 365 days of the year) just doesn’t sound cool to me. And to think of foregoing even one vacation day seems criminal, really.
Most bloggers or IGers won’t tell you all the nonsense they’ve done for a shot, but they’ve all done it. Because nothing in life is ever as perfect as a curated Instagram feed makes it look. And that doesn’t mean the experiences people post about aren’t real, but we’re not always keeping it real about what exactly those experiences entailed. So this is me keeping it real.
When I re-read travel quotes, they remind me of two things: one, there is always more travel ahead, and two, travel is such a beautiful thing that it can inspire you long after you’ve done it. So, here are my all-time favorite travel quotes, the ones that aren’t clichés, aren’t overused and most importantly, aren’t corny.
For some people, the idea of traveling somewhere solo sounds sad and lonely, while for others of us, it sounds like freedom to do whatever you want whenever you want. For those of you who haven’t tried it yet and aren’t sure, here are some tips for ways to do it and love it.
It’s a little weird for me to write a blog that’s just about myself, but since many of you have had the same questions about how I filled my life with travel, I’m hoping this is something that might be helpful or insightful for those of you interested in getting more travel in your own life and wondering how to do it. So, here goes.
Provided you haven’t committed crimes, or aren’t planning to commit crimes, signing up for Global Entry should be your next highest priority.
We travel to eliminate ignorance. We travel to see the world and uncover the beauty in it. We travel to understand that our way isn’t “it” or the best way or the only way. And we travel to return and spread that tolerance through the stories we tell and the pictures we share.
Food is easily my second greatest love after travel. Which means when I travel, I think eating everything is part of the whole joyous experience. And it is. But I’m trying to learn balance, because when the trips start to add up, that means the scrumptious eats start to add up, which means the pounds start to add up.