Ted. We
recently received an email from a friend of ours. She asked about our new
routines and wondered if travel sometimes felt like work. She also wanted to
know what was our “touchstone” that anchored us to home during our wanderings.
After about a month of
travel, the "vacation" feel disappeared. We realized that this was
our life now. It just so happened that “where we live” was constantly changing.
We intentionally don't
spend all of our time seeing the "must see sights" at every
destination. We focus on just "living our lives" and try to keep the
"touristing” to a minimum. Thus, much of each day is filled with the mundane
activities of our lives. We read, take random walks, do laundry, buy groceries,
read the news online, study Spanish and work on our blog. We even watch a
little local TV and catch a show on Netflix from time to time. I do spend a lot
of time researching and booking hotels, apartments, flights, local transportation
and rental cars. That is definitely work, but I enjoy it. Judy practices
some yoga and pilates and keeps up with what plays and commercials are casting
in Atlanta.
Our vision for the future was to spend two months or so at each destination.
So our four month RTW trip was really an exception. We chose to do a whirlwind
tour simply to get a sense of what the world has to offer besides North America
and Western Europe. This has worked out well but has been a bit exhausting. We
have tried to spend a week each month in one place but there are a lot of “one night stands.” In October we will spend
five weeks in an apartment in Oaxaca, Mexico and that will be much more typical
of what we have in mind long term. This will mean less work managing logistics.
I think our touchstone through all of this is the FaceTime
conversations with family. The ability to see our children and grandchildren as
well as my father and sisters every couple of weeks helps me to feel that we
are not very far away. We also plan to
return to Georgia every few months to get extended visits with our many friends
and family back home.
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