I just purchased a plane ticket to Europe. I'm truly very excited about it and I literally jumped up and down for a minute after confirming my itinerary.
It's been two years since I moved back from Edinburgh, Scotland. I have not been back since I've left. I can't believe how long it's been and how much has happened.
I'm very, very excited to see some new cities and revisit some of my favorite ones.
I'm very, very excited to see some new cities and revisit some of my favorite ones.
Just to catch you up on my life since I've last written here really quickly:
It's been a year and a half since I moved back from beautiful and cold Edinburgh, Scotland. I miss it everyday, but I enjoyed the last 21 months I've lived in Santa Barbara.
Since I've moved back...
I graduated from the University of California with a degree in Political Science.
I celebrated my 21st and 22nd birthdays.
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I went to two Holis.
I went to two Deltopias.
I went to two Extravaganzas.
I went to Disneyland twice.
I went to Vegas twice.
And I went to Hawaii!
I've been working and living in Santa Barbara since I graduated. I met and got to know some truly amazing people and had some great experiences.
I'll be sad to leave behind my afternoons running down the beach, biking around Isla Vista, having all my friends a maximum of two minutes away, and how comfortable I am in this laid back beach town I've lived in for four years. But I am very excited for the next phase of my life.
Everyone I've told of my plan to quit my job to go travel has been outwardly very supportive.
I did doubt that I was making the right decision, though. You can ask Shannon. She watched me pace back and forth, vocalizing my internal debate as I had the plane ticket waiting on my laptop screen, one click away from being purchased. I knew I love to travel, and it seemed to me that traveling would be what would make me most happy right now. But I felt like I needed to justify it to myself. Why quit a job that I liked that was paying the bills? It seemed to make sense. I wanted to travel and now seemed like the most opportune time. I was done with my undergraduate degree and had not yet started graduate school or a career path I wanted to pursue long term. In a broader sense though, I realized I had never really asked myself:
Why do I like traveling?
If I was going to quit my job and abandon my routine and lifestyle I wanted to at least understand why I wanted to go. I thought about it for awhile, and the more I thought about it the more I found it harder to explain.
The benefits of staying in one place are apparent. In Santa Barbara, I was a part of a nice community of friends, of people who were always down to go for a hike or grab a pint at Woodstocks. I met some really amazing people in Santa Barbara and I'm glad I had the chance to live and grow with them for an extended period of time. I loved my daily routine - my morning bike ride to work, my evening run down to the beach, my daily cup of coffee, and wine nights with friends.
It took me four years to get the hang of life in Santa Barbara. I was very comfortable there. I learned the street names, knew directions to anywhere I needed to go, and knew the ins and outs of the SB culture. It's very comfortable and reassuring knowing what to expect from each day.
The same is true for NorCal. I always joke that being back home I can never leave the house without running into someone. Even after being gone for the last four years I can't buy a sandwich, make a midnight run for ice cream at Safeway, or walk the dog without running into someone I know. (You would think knowing that would encourage me to change out of sweats when I leave the house.) But it is really nice to have roots somewhere, to run into old neighbors who ask how I've been, or to catch up with old friends.
When you have a routine, when you live somewhere for awhile, the days all begin to blend together. You know what to expect from each day, so it becomes hard to distinguish one Greek yogurt and granola breakfast from the next. Weekly trips to Trader Joe's or to the bank are done on autopilot and subsequently forgotten about.
When you're traveling though, everything becomes an adventure.You feel fully alive and present in every moment of every day because everything is new and different. Trips to the grocery store become an adventure because you don't speak the language and while you think you are eating potato dumplings, you're actually eating liver*. Grocery stores sell strange products like Curry and Ketchup flavored potato chips and you get excited over seeing things in foreign markets that don't seem that exciting when you're shopping in the US, things like graham crackers and Kraft Mac and Cheese, a tiny taste of home.
*You think I'm joking, but unfortunately this actually happened.
Routine is comforting, but that's not what I'm looking for right now. Traveling makes you relearn things you thought you already knew how to do and challenges you to do them differently than you thought was normal. It makes you question your assumptions about normal.
I've always found traveling to be very unlike food in that the more you have the more your appetite becomes insatiable.
One of my favorite parts about traveling has always been the people you meet. I genuinely like talking to people and I always think it's interesting to hear about their lives, what they like to do, what they dream of doing. From the rowdy Irishmen who'll buy you a pitcher in Dublin to the soft spoken hostel mate to the friendly people who help point you in the right direction along the way.
In addition to that, I like being on the move. I like trains, and planes, and airports. I like going to places I've never been before. There's so much to see! I like having coffee in cafes in rainy cities and learning new words in new languages and exploring old buildings and sights that make places unique. I like going on adventures.
Each city lives and breathes and has it's own personality. Each city has its own culture, traditions, and way of life. Each city is built and sustained by the people who live in it; the people who each have their own interesting stories and personalities and histories and cultures.
It's a big world, but it's also small. There's so much to see and do and I want to see and do it all.
Never neglecting an opportunity to quote Doctor Who, here is something the Eleventh Doctor says which I feel is applicable:
"I’m not running away. But this is one corner… of one country, in one continent, on one planet that’s a corner of a galaxy that’s a corner of a universe that is forever growing and shrinking and creating and destroying, and never remaining the same for a single millisecond. And there is so much, so much to see... Because it goes so fast. I’m not running away from things, I am running to them."
Everyone I've told of my plan to quit my job to go travel has been outwardly very supportive.
I did doubt that I was making the right decision, though. You can ask Shannon. She watched me pace back and forth, vocalizing my internal debate as I had the plane ticket waiting on my laptop screen, one click away from being purchased. I knew I love to travel, and it seemed to me that traveling would be what would make me most happy right now. But I felt like I needed to justify it to myself. Why quit a job that I liked that was paying the bills? It seemed to make sense. I wanted to travel and now seemed like the most opportune time. I was done with my undergraduate degree and had not yet started graduate school or a career path I wanted to pursue long term. In a broader sense though, I realized I had never really asked myself:
Why do I like traveling?
If I was going to quit my job and abandon my routine and lifestyle I wanted to at least understand why I wanted to go. I thought about it for awhile, and the more I thought about it the more I found it harder to explain.
The benefits of staying in one place are apparent. In Santa Barbara, I was a part of a nice community of friends, of people who were always down to go for a hike or grab a pint at Woodstocks. I met some really amazing people in Santa Barbara and I'm glad I had the chance to live and grow with them for an extended period of time. I loved my daily routine - my morning bike ride to work, my evening run down to the beach, my daily cup of coffee, and wine nights with friends.
It took me four years to get the hang of life in Santa Barbara. I was very comfortable there. I learned the street names, knew directions to anywhere I needed to go, and knew the ins and outs of the SB culture. It's very comfortable and reassuring knowing what to expect from each day.
The same is true for NorCal. I always joke that being back home I can never leave the house without running into someone. Even after being gone for the last four years I can't buy a sandwich, make a midnight run for ice cream at Safeway, or walk the dog without running into someone I know. (You would think knowing that would encourage me to change out of sweats when I leave the house.) But it is really nice to have roots somewhere, to run into old neighbors who ask how I've been, or to catch up with old friends.
When you have a routine, when you live somewhere for awhile, the days all begin to blend together. You know what to expect from each day, so it becomes hard to distinguish one Greek yogurt and granola breakfast from the next. Weekly trips to Trader Joe's or to the bank are done on autopilot and subsequently forgotten about.
When you're traveling though, everything becomes an adventure.You feel fully alive and present in every moment of every day because everything is new and different. Trips to the grocery store become an adventure because you don't speak the language and while you think you are eating potato dumplings, you're actually eating liver*. Grocery stores sell strange products like Curry and Ketchup flavored potato chips and you get excited over seeing things in foreign markets that don't seem that exciting when you're shopping in the US, things like graham crackers and Kraft Mac and Cheese, a tiny taste of home.
*You think I'm joking, but unfortunately this actually happened.
Routine is comforting, but that's not what I'm looking for right now. Traveling makes you relearn things you thought you already knew how to do and challenges you to do them differently than you thought was normal. It makes you question your assumptions about normal.
I've always found traveling to be very unlike food in that the more you have the more your appetite becomes insatiable.
One of my favorite parts about traveling has always been the people you meet. I genuinely like talking to people and I always think it's interesting to hear about their lives, what they like to do, what they dream of doing. From the rowdy Irishmen who'll buy you a pitcher in Dublin to the soft spoken hostel mate to the friendly people who help point you in the right direction along the way.
In addition to that, I like being on the move. I like trains, and planes, and airports. I like going to places I've never been before. There's so much to see! I like having coffee in cafes in rainy cities and learning new words in new languages and exploring old buildings and sights that make places unique. I like going on adventures.
Each city lives and breathes and has it's own personality. Each city has its own culture, traditions, and way of life. Each city is built and sustained by the people who live in it; the people who each have their own interesting stories and personalities and histories and cultures.
It's a big world, but it's also small. There's so much to see and do and I want to see and do it all.
Never neglecting an opportunity to quote Doctor Who, here is something the Eleventh Doctor says which I feel is applicable:
"I’m not running away. But this is one corner… of one country, in one continent, on one planet that’s a corner of a galaxy that’s a corner of a universe that is forever growing and shrinking and creating and destroying, and never remaining the same for a single millisecond. And there is so much, so much to see... Because it goes so fast. I’m not running away from things, I am running to them."
While I (sort of) (not really) have a plan, and I don't literally have an atlas in my hands, I'll end this post with a quote from one of my favorite songs, which I'll leave up to your own metaphorical interpretation as well as your listening pleasure.
(Or, if you don't want to come up with your own metaphor I like to think something along the lines of no plan necessary - you've got a world of opportunity at your fingertips, and can go anywhere in the world you like.)
(Or, if you don't want to come up with your own metaphor I like to think something along the lines of no plan necessary - you've got a world of opportunity at your fingertips, and can go anywhere in the world you like.)
"I've got a plan, I've got an atlas in my hands," Benjamin Francis Leftwich "Atlas Hands"
