why Travel ?

I wanted to take time off to clear my head, figure out life and relationships. I also wanted to get fit along the way as sitting for 8+ hours was not doing my waistline any favours.

I planned to take 6 weeks off in 2016 and started planning for it in 2015 November. On thanksgiving day on a whim I decided to buy one way tickets to Iceland and surprised my husband. I have been itching to do a long distance hike for the past year with my husband, so we booked another ticket to France and made a plan to walk the Le Puy route. A few months later my husband was not that interested in walking 500 miles in France after looking at temperatures. So I started looking again for a long distance trail in a country with cooler summer temperatures. I found st Olav’s pilgrim trail in the process and my husband was excited to explore Norway.

I mostly researched the trail and nothing else as I strongly believed trail walking to be therapeutic and wanted to devout all the time walking. With a phone call to Iceland air I was able to change the tickets from Paris to Oslo with a 2 day stopover in Iceland.

I read blogs obsessively about the St Olav’s way in Gudbrandsdalen and found out that it was best to carry dehydrated food from home country as everything was expensive in Norway.

I didn’t know how much food does a person normally eat or how this dehydrating of food worked. I gave myself 6 months to figure out the food and get in shape. Due to unexpected family visits, work, moving to a new house my window shrunk. A month before the trip I frantically bought stuff, freeze dried everything I could get my hands on and bought gear. I worked till plane took off and worked a bit after that.

We had a fantastic couple of days in Iceland driving around and hiking. Oslo was stressful as we had to mail packages ahead, had to figure out the postal system, sticker shock of Norway prices for everything and I fell out of exhaustion. I was so stressed from doing all the chores I didn’t enjoy Oslo. Everything took twice as long as we had to figure out a foreign postal, bus and trail system.

Lesson learned – be rested and relaxed before travel. Take a few days off to prepare for your trip and make a list of few things to do ahead of time

We were off hiking after spending 3 days in Oslo. We spent a few days camping and loved walking in the woods. On the third day we walked in a forest where there were swarms of mosquitoes biting us all day long and we didn’t enjoy it as much.

We were so exhausted from the preparations that small annoyances bothered us. We should have stopped and rested for a few days or heck a week. We kept pushing as we had a schedule to keep if we wanted to finish the trail on time.

Lesson learned : when the body and mind are not upto it, listen

Previously when I did a long distance trail I didn’t have to put up the tent, pack up, cook, clean and go without a shower. The camp setup and tear down took time atleast a few hours a day. The undulating terrain in Norway took longer everyday to hike the planned distances. So we made a new plan to stay in farms on the way instead of tent so that we can rest and have a hot shower. Interestingly most Norwegian pilgrim places didn’t serve breakfast or dinner, so we had to still carry our food around. I went through 8+ blisters another fall on pavement and I was in pain every downhill step I took. After 3 weeks of the trail we decided to take a pause and see Norway as it was not fun to hike everyday anymore. I was hesitant, confused and sad to deviate from the plan and do sightseeing. I was scared as I had to figure out the places to stay, travel, things to do and transport. There were too many decisions to make to go off the trail and I was scared of taking those decisions on. I should have listened to my body and not felt guilty. After all I was on vacation and who cares if I only hiked a 3rd of the trail or the whole trail. The whole point of the vacation was to take a timeout from my regular life, connect with nature, my thoughts, figure out a few things and spend time with my husband.

Lesson learned – being flexible and changing plans to suit your needs is not failure

After a week of rest my blisters healed, my knees no longer bothered me and my mind was happy not pursuing a goal. I was happy to just sit and stare at the sea, mountain or river. I was just happy living, being still and not pursuing something.

Lesson learned – the goal of travel or life is to be in the moment and experience what’s happening to you

We still have 2 weeks to spend in Norway and I am fine with whatever it has to offer. I have no goals but I have ideas on what new things I want to do.

This trip took me out my comfort zone and put me through some rough times where I questioned taking time off and travelling. But it has also helped me figure out how to be in the moment and experience it. It helped me appreciate the life I have and people I love more. It gave me a new perspective of what a balanced life looks like and along the way it was a plus to see some incredible things.

Travel is personal and the reasons for travel change from person to personi. I was at peace figuring out what it meant for me.