Wanderlust.

[rivka]

Over Christmas, talking with my sister Debbie, the subject of our 2002 trip to the Florida Keys came up. I said to her, "You know, that was one of the nicest vacations I've taken."

"Wow," she said. "You really haven't traveled much."

It felt like a slap in the face, although I know she didn't mean anything of the kind. It's just... she travels a lot, and she makes enough money, and spends it frugally enough, to go on exotic and exciting trips. Since we went to the Keys together, she's taken a small-boat cruise to the Galapagos, for heaven's sake. She's been to Egypt. She goes sea kayaking in Alaska and hiking in New Zealand.

I had meant to be saying something about how much I enjoyed traveling with her, and what a peaceful and relaxing trip it had been. I wasn't trying to say that I thought the Florida Keys were the best place in the world, based on my extensive survey. I haven't traveled that much - we simply haven't had the money for it, or the time. But I'd like to do more.

So I've been daydreaming. I'm helped along by my discovery of the concept of family adventure travel. It's nice to know that there are other people who think it's perfectly plausible to take a 6- or 8-year-old child on safari to Tanzania, or on a cruise down the Nile, or touring in Vietnam. Further surfing has led me to infant adventure travel, minimum age one year, with possible trips to Turkey, Morocco, Jordan, Lapland, Egypt.

Okay, that last concept might be a little extreme. But it's feeling good right now to have a sense of expanded horizons. In a few years, we might go anywhere.

Comments

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I've been daydreaming today about renting a house in Brittany that sleeps eight, and going there for a week next summer with some carefully selected friends. It's remarkably cheap, or would be, divided by eight. It has a cot and a high chair, might you and Alex be interested?

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Oh, Rivka, if you can say yes to Papersky's offer, do. When Glenn and I received a similar offer two years ago, to stay in a farmhouse in the south of France with a group of friends, our first impulse was to say that it was a lovely offer, but we couldn't possibly. We got over that whole we-couldn't-possibly thang, and it was the most wonderful vacation of our lives.

It still amazes me what a lot of obstacles we threw in our own way to try to keep ourselves from being able to do something we wanted to do.

[xopher-vh.livejournal.com]

It still amazes me what a lot of obstacles we threw in our own way to try to keep ourselves from being able to do something we wanted to do.

Ever have something that someone said as a specific comment in a confined context point out a defining principle of your entire life?

I do that. All the time. In fact, I've been doing it more and more, to the point where anything other than going home and sitting in my apartment after work is terribly difficult.

Wow.

Thanks. Not sure it's going to change anything, but that just named something important for me. And naming gives power!

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I think that sounds marvelous!