How This Over-Planner Discovered the Joys of Spontaneous Traveling
Sometimes thinking ahead is overrated
I’m not much of a traveler. Though I love to explore and see new places, I don’t much like the stress that comes with it. For most of my life, I’ve preferred to curl up at home, knitting and watching TV shows that take place in the locations I dream of seeing one day.
It’s been a perfectly stress-free solution. But in middle age, it’s just not cutting it. I have the distinct feeling that time is running out. And I don’t want to lose out on the experiences I’ve dreamed of, even if that means stretching both my budget and my comfort zone.
Like most people (I assume), I have a long list of places I’d like to visit during my lifetime. My list has multiple categories, some of which intersect. These include distance and priority level.
These distinctions help me make decisions that will feed my midlife thirst for travel on a very limited budget. For instance, I’ve been saving up for a trip to Scotland and Ireland for years (#1 on my travel priority list) but in the meantime, I can still explore my region for a few hundred dollars here and there.
And last fall, that’s exactly what I did. I had only just arrived at the conclusion that the era of staying comfortably at home was…
