I think those who don’t suffer from wanderlust are missing a gene that the rest of us travel lovers were either born or developed along the way. But I’m no scientist, so I did some digging to see if I’m onto something with this theory.
I’m finally back, back in Cali, Cali.
Or home, as it should be. But home is a funny thing when you’re me. When someone asks where I’m from, my eyes glaze over while I decide how to launch into the list of places I call home
The Toronto skyline faded behind us as our tour boat, the Harbour Star, motored out from Queen’s Quay. I had anticipated this ride to be a bit over-touristy, but it was kind of fantastic. A very animated young redhead narrated the tour. She spoke about the history and the current happenings in and around the harbour and the islands. On such a hot summer day, it was hard to imagine any part of this harbour being frozen over as she had mentioned. We learned of the rivalries between the local yacht clubs (oh, life gets so complicated sometimes…) and even got to witness…
Home is where the heart is…right? Well what if your heart is all over the world? Then would home be wherever your stuff is? Maybe you don’t have stuff, or are traveling with all of it. So would home be where your family lives? Sigh. Who knows. I suspect I have not found home yet; haven’t found one place where my heart is. But I fear that is an impossible feat, as I have dispersed little fractions of my heart on six different continents. As I walked the streets of Toronto and the Daniels signage blatantly bawled my name, I…
Aah, the airport. The bookends of all my greatest travel stories. I am finally here, finally feeling the familiar rush of the traveling I have so missed. The crowded, always too narrow walkways are strewn with people trying to figure out where to go. Inevitably, the charming, old couple who appears to have never traveled before, always gets in line right in front of me, asking for advice and wanting to know if they are in the right place. I oblige them with a smile, after all, this is all part of the experience. I watch as lovers part and exchange…
I finally did it. I opened my wallet, logged on to cheaptickets.com, arranged my flight, and clicked the beautiful blue ‘CONFIRM’ button that would restore my happiness in an instant. I am going to Puerto Rico! The separation between travel and I has been bleak. There were many long nights spent lying awake dreaming of travel, dreaming of what I would do when we saw each other again. I imagined myself in the airport and what I’d be wearing when we met. I thought about travel every day. There were moments of watching others in the ‘honeymoon’ phase of their…
My search for a travel friendly, cubicle-free lifestyle ended with a shrimp truck. Well, not ended exactly, more like made a pit stop. Yes, a shrimp truck, as in prepare shrimp, cook shrimp, and serve shrimp right from the truck. I never imagined what I could see from the inside of a restaurant on wheels. Actually, I suppose I never imagined I would ever be inside a restaurant on wheels. But the travel bug makes me do crazy things. Throughout the bustling and trend-hungry streets of Los Angeles, there is an underground culinary culture that is ‘The Food Truck.’ And…
Stage 3: Affirmations.I will travel again. I will travel again. I will travel again. Now that the void left in my life from lack of traveling has reached a whole new level of huge, I have resorted to positive affirmations. Another stage in this disease and I am trying to cope. Maybe it will help, you know, self-fulfilling prophecy, “The Secret”…whatever. If I imagine myself with my toes in the sand somewhere far away, I will get there. At least I have recently managed to gain some perspective. I had the horror of learning that a colleague (a pre-travel-bug-employment-sabotage colleague…
Now I’m dreaming about traveling?! Wow. My body is so acutely aware of the lack of traveling it has experienced of late, that if I am not traveling in my waking life, it is content to travel in various stages of REM. The dream involved booking a trip to Dubai, preparing, packing, and getting ready, only to decide that I couldn’t manage the trip due to a lack of funds. WHAT?? Did I not have my credit card? Isn’t this supposed to be a dream? A place where all my greatest wants and wishes are manifested? Wow. I can’t even…
You see, I always thought corporate life was for me. I imagined myself as Aileen Marshall, business woman and owner of Marshall’s stores, for a 3rd grade class project. I know…Marshall’s? I was 8 and living in Europe, Macy’s, Nordstrom, and Neimans were not part of my vocabulary. It was Marshall’s. I got dressed up in the most professional kids attire in existence, and I delivered my idea of the most glamorous job I could think of and how I was going to love it. HA! The things you learn as you get older! It wasn’t until I arrived in…