Discover travel bliss at home
“A wise traveler never despises his own country.”
If someone asked what would make me happier, my answer (pretty much anytime, any day) would include travel planning or travelling. My very existence feels empty when I don’t have a trip in the making. I know that sounds a tad dramatic, but it’s true. For decades I was caught up in the vicious cycle of wanting to travel, but being unable to travel. Going traveling, then being at home and being super sad that it was over.
Rinse and repeat.
While I have spent a good part of my career working with research on wellbeing for others (communities, parents, children, youth, organizations) it wasn’t until the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 that life dramatically created a desperate opportunity for me to put my know-how into personal practice. Along with much of the world, my own wellbeing was significantly challenged during the pandemic. The inability to go anywhere, the periods of uncertainty of whether we would ever be able to leave our local area, let alone our country, along with the distorted and scary media stories, shook everyone up.
The experience was a bleak reminder that life is too precious, short and uncertain to spend time pining for trips I may no longer take. The thought humbled me and felt like someone had hastily pulled the plug of a comfortable, warm bath, letting the bubbles and bath water empty around me.
Years of wanderlust create highs, lows and swings of emotions for amazing journeys and unrequited travel dreams. With COVID, it was completely possible that travel was off the table for good! It was, in fact, a reality that it was off the table for a good long time.
I felt stuck at home!
“Enough!” my early, optimistic yet scared pandemic self protested. I was confident in the connection between travel and wellbeing. If travel-life as we know it is over...for good, how can I live my life like the traveller I want to be, feel those feelings I get from travel - but at home?
I started to experiment and pay attention to this question. Some days I found myself commiserating with the thousands of travel lovers in a variety of Facebook groups. Amongst these groups, the longing, the yearning, the sadness, the loss and disappointment to a present (and possible future) without travel was palpable. Other times I was buoyed with energy as I did something engaging and fun. Other days I tried to pretend that travel would be back just around the corner so I’d read and plan and dream. I’d get my fill on travel shows and novels chosen primarily for their location.
The nagging question I had asked myself persisted - what can I do (yes DO - not just think, learn or understand) to live my life like the traveller I want to be, feel those feelings I get from travel - at home? This is the kernel of what has become Travel Bug Tonic. I realized that I was in a place to help myself and other travel lovers to take the ideas and science behind Travel Bliss and to apply them to enhance everyday life, boost wellbeing and lessen the impact of being “grounded.” Said another way, I wanted to both discover and share how to approach living a life of wellbeing in the language of travel lovers.
One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.
Henry Miller
The Perils of Polarized Thinking
Ever play that game - Would you rather?
Would you rather... have more time or more money?
Would you rather... have a rewind button or a pause button on your life?
Would you rather... be able to talk with the animals or speak all foreign languages?
Or with a travel twist:
Would you rather… miss your flight or lose your luggage?
Would you rather… be left in the bush on a safari, or be left in the ocean on a scuba diving trip?
Would you rather… travel the world for a year on a shoestring budget, or travel for one month in complete luxury?
This game emphasizes a common cognitive distortion (think warped way of thinking) called polarized thinking. This is when a person sees situations in “either/or” categories, with no shades of gray. Polarized thinking doesn’t see the complexities in a situation. A person with polarized or black-and-white thinking sees things only in the extremes.
I’ll admit that in some circumstances I catch myself thinking this way, e.g. using the word never or forever a little too quick. I find that I can process information incorrectly and get my knickers in the twist of emotional distress. Not healthy and not helpful!
It’s no surprise, perhaps, that it's a mistake to choose between loving big travel journeys and everyday life. That leads to a sense of black and white, good and bad or polarized thinking.
Accepting Travel Bliss “at home” shouldn’t be a sell out or a disappointment to the true travel junkie because you don’t actually have to choose one over the other. Rather, let’s experience Travel Bliss on a trip OR at home…. Wouldn’t you like to experience both?! For those who live and breathe travel above all else - this may require some mindset shifts.
Don’t choose!
But let’s NOT choose...and, instead, love our journeys and our everyday lives. And even choose to make them both better with a little self-reflection, personal learning and social connection.
Sharing an old hike with someone new.
One of my earliest experiments after starting to think in a new way was taking my husband to a place I had been, but he had not. It is a beautiful hike in an alpine meadow only an hour away from our home. While it was not new to me, being with someone who was experiencing the place for the first time and being open and aware to his wonder and appreciation contributed to my own happy travel feeling. To heighten the experience, the hike itself was made more challenging because there had been an early dusting of snow. The paths and many boardwalks were slippery with ice making each step a challenge. The difficulty elevated our need to pay attention, assist each other sometimes and visually appreciate that with ice came the spectacular sight of snow kissed trees.
Fostering a Travel State of Mind at Home
The approach to achieving your Travel Bliss at home is very similar to planning for your next grand adventure.
A goal without a plan is just a wish.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Planning (but not over planning), satisfying your travel motivations and baking in wellbeing practices are all key. There are, however, some significant challenges to doing this at home. We have the tendency to fall back into our everyday routines. Home has all sorts of triggers and reminders that make it easy for us to choose normal, easy or passive activities. In addition, all the hustle and bustle of life lingers in our brains when we stay in the same environment. It’s hard to feel like we’ve escaped!
With mindset shifts, practical strategies, some Travel Bliss skills and some experimentation - it is totally do-able. The Swedish have a word that fits well here; Livsnjutare - it translates as one who loves life deeply and lives it to the extreme. To me, THAT is finding your Travel Bliss at home!
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