Why?
Some people have also asked me how I picked my route and stops. So here is the deductive process I followed with help from many other people.
After looking through my bucket list of destinations and sabbatical prospects, I had to narrow the list of potential destinations. I don't have unlimited time and resources, so I removed countries from the itinerary that I will likely visit as part of a vacation in the future (i.e. Ireland, Greece). Next I needed to decide to travel east or west. Reasoning with Ashton, a colleague at Epic, we decided heading west is the best idea since in my time-frame I'd be guaranteed nice weather everywhere.
The destinations I have are a mix of "I've always wanted to go there," "I'm curious," and "why not." I traveled a bit more over the last 5 years than this blog suggests and those trips have taught me some things about myself and what I like. For instance, I will not do all inclusive resorts ever again...unless it's a large group outing to which it is in bad taste to say no. When I got back from Jamaica, Jason, another colleague at Epic, shared the wonderful, spot on David Foster Wallace piece "A Supposedly Fun Thing That I'll Never Do Again". Prior to that, I spent a week in London at a 5 star Marriott next to the London Eye. While luxurious and gorgeous, it's not exactly the way to have the most fun, and I really understood Rick Steves that week.
On top of that trip, a few others taught me that seeing everything is less important than having a good time. I have a penchant for lists and checking things off lists. So seeing everything possible in a small period of time is my usual MO on vacations. But when you find yourself unable to walk in your fancy London hotel, or crippled in Epcot, you know you did something wrong. So this time I'm taking a page from the night mom and I stayed in in New York and watched some award show on TV. A superb night and in no way physically or mentally damaging. For the next eight months I will continue that tradition of finding what I like, what I hate, and where I'll want to come back over and over again.
As us folks currently without an occupation know (thanks to Aaron for clearly laying this out), we spend month one sleeping and month two watching copious amounts of Netflix. I am a lover of the little Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and managed to watch 11 seasons of his murder mysteries this year (slightly better than the 14 seasons of Jessica Fletcher in Murder She Wrote a few years back). The last episode in season 11 a travel writer (spoiler: of course the murderer) tells Poirot what she thinks of travel. So here goes, what we all know to be true but too often forget:
"I suspect travel narrows the mind. One becomes so blasé about the wonders of the world. The more I travel the more clearly I understand it. All that ever matters is the people, not the places."
After looking through my bucket list of destinations and sabbatical prospects, I had to narrow the list of potential destinations. I don't have unlimited time and resources, so I removed countries from the itinerary that I will likely visit as part of a vacation in the future (i.e. Ireland, Greece). Next I needed to decide to travel east or west. Reasoning with Ashton, a colleague at Epic, we decided heading west is the best idea since in my time-frame I'd be guaranteed nice weather everywhere.
The destinations I have are a mix of "I've always wanted to go there," "I'm curious," and "why not." I traveled a bit more over the last 5 years than this blog suggests and those trips have taught me some things about myself and what I like. For instance, I will not do all inclusive resorts ever again...unless it's a large group outing to which it is in bad taste to say no. When I got back from Jamaica, Jason, another colleague at Epic, shared the wonderful, spot on David Foster Wallace piece "A Supposedly Fun Thing That I'll Never Do Again". Prior to that, I spent a week in London at a 5 star Marriott next to the London Eye. While luxurious and gorgeous, it's not exactly the way to have the most fun, and I really understood Rick Steves that week.
On top of that trip, a few others taught me that seeing everything is less important than having a good time. I have a penchant for lists and checking things off lists. So seeing everything possible in a small period of time is my usual MO on vacations. But when you find yourself unable to walk in your fancy London hotel, or crippled in Epcot, you know you did something wrong. So this time I'm taking a page from the night mom and I stayed in in New York and watched some award show on TV. A superb night and in no way physically or mentally damaging. For the next eight months I will continue that tradition of finding what I like, what I hate, and where I'll want to come back over and over again.
As us folks currently without an occupation know (thanks to Aaron for clearly laying this out), we spend month one sleeping and month two watching copious amounts of Netflix. I am a lover of the little Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and managed to watch 11 seasons of his murder mysteries this year (slightly better than the 14 seasons of Jessica Fletcher in Murder She Wrote a few years back). The last episode in season 11 a travel writer (spoiler: of course the murderer) tells Poirot what she thinks of travel. So here goes, what we all know to be true but too often forget:
"I suspect travel narrows the mind. One becomes so blasé about the wonders of the world. The more I travel the more clearly I understand it. All that ever matters is the people, not the places."
