Reading With A Bit Of Envy

During my life I have enjoyed travelling to many different places around the United States and to some other parts of the world. Every once in a while, such as this week when I was corresponding with a reporter, I am even able to pull from those experiences and offer a few suggestions of places to go, things to see, or where you can get a nice meal. While I am more traveled than some, I fall tremendously short of others.

Maybe this is the reason why I experience a slight hint of envy when I read my friend Nadine’s blog. Nadine and my wife used to work together years ago and since that time she has been to some amazing places and accomplished some impressive feats. She has been to France for a season, Italy to visit a friend, and, this past summer she walked the entirety of the Camino. All of these places would be wonderful to see but I have yet to travel to those places.

Thankfully, she has proven to be quite the prolific blogger and photographer so, on occasion, I will venture over to her page and read through some of the informative and entertaining posts… most of them have centered on travel but there is also a good mix of both humor and reflection. I think the most recent incarnation of her creative passion, “Begin With A Single Step”, touches on all of those things and more. This was evident in her first post when she wrote the following:

“A single step feels both enormous and insignificant. Whether it’s an actual footstep, the beginning action of something, a small part of a process or even a decision to start; it’s one step. It takes stringing the steps together, putting one foot in front of the other over and over again, day in and day out- often tirelessly- to get somewhere. To create something. To change one thing in your life. To change your entire life.”

I read the words and look at the picture and while I would like to see those places first hand there are also places that I have been and experiences I have had that have filled my life. Some people have even read my posts about them or heard me mention them in conversation and reacted the same way that I do to Nadine’s adventures. Even if I never make it to the places that I read about in books or on blogs, there are so many other things that I would have never been able to experience had I packed my bags and hit the road.

I guess we all just live different lives with each of us seeing different things while others simply imagine them. We can do everything and be everywhere. We all put one foot in front of the other but it doesn’t mean we are all going to walk on the same path or in the same direction. And, honestly, I am blown away by the scenery that surrounds me on my journey.

Keeping The Travel List In Perspective

As you may have read yesterday, I am finally at the point in the year when I am giving considerable thought to the places that my wife and I would enjoy visiting this summer. Of course, this is in addition to any business travel as well as the lodge related trips to Erie, Scranton, Philadelphia, and, probably, Elizabethtown that I will be making during the sweltering season. Interestingly, while I was thinking about summer travel and putting my list together I came across an email (thanks Vocus) about the top ten destinations as reported by the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Talk about keeping things in perspective!

For those of you unfamiliar with Make-A-Wish, here is the summary of the nonprofit from their website:

Make-A-Wish^® grants the wish of a child diagnosed with a life-threatening medical condition in the United States and its territories, on average, every 38 minutes. We believe that a wish experience can be a game-changer. This one belief guides us. It inspires us to grant wishes that change the lives of the kids we serve.

Not all wishes require travel, many of them do and the foundation is determined to make sure that distance is not a hindrance to the fulfillment of those dreams forming in a child’s mind. 

While my wife and I visit places to get away and relax a bit, for these kids, these are dream destinations, not just a simple means of getting away. However, these trips do offer some sense of escape from reality which seems to be why the destinations tend to focus on places where wish kids and their families can experience the excitement something different whether it is a big city, theme park, foreign country, or beach destination. Based on data from wish trips that occurred in 2013, the destinations most visited by wish kids and their families were:

1. Orlando
2. Hawaii
3. Los Angeles & Orange County
4. The Caribbean
5. New York City
6. San Diego
7. France
8. Italy
9. Australia
10. Alaska

It is an interesting and diverse list and something to think about when putting your own summer itinerary together. We constantly focus on the places where we are going and forget the reasons why we go. It is to spend time together and experience life together beyond the usual routine of life. For some of us all it takes is a day trip while others need a little more and need to go a little further to put their daily lives behind them. We all need a break now and then, some people just need more of a break than others.