Journey and Destination

“Travel is intensified living- maximum thrills per minute and one of the last great sources of legal adventure. Travel is freedom. Its recess and we need it.”

From Rick Steves’ Europe Through The Back Door.

As many of you know, Bill and I are going to London for our holidays. That is London, England. It has only been 6 weeks since I have returned from Japan. There are so many parts of that holiday that I am still digesting and dreaming about.
Typically Bill and I take vacation every year. I believe strongly that one has to go away to recharge, to revitalize, to regroup and to play. Vacation has always been about recess to us. It is that time of year when life just shifts gears and our norms are challenged.
In the past few years, Bill and I have been planning less for these holidays. At the risk of being politically incorrect, we love to travel like gypsies. Let the road take us to our next destination wherever that is. It has rarely been about the destination. It has been about the journey.
A few years back we were invited to participate in one of those “presentations” given by a house boat vacation company. Being in a particularly playful mood we decided to attend and see what the fuss was all about. We listened to their high power presentation. We listened to the kudos by those who were already in the plan. After the presentation, the sales people were set loose on the group for a little one on one high pressure salesmanship. Bill and I listened again. We weren’t interested in house boating. The sales person then said it could be traded in for vacation homes around the world. We looked at each other and then simply asked; well what do you do when you get there? That salesperson left and got what we think was the head salesman or the “closer”. We asked him the same question. He smiled and said “oh you people are not destination people, but journey people.” He shook our hands and escorted us out quite quickly to collect our free gift. We had to leave before the other groups were infected by us. We loved it.
Thus a few weeks ago, we started to think about our holiday plans. We went to AMA and got travel books. We were thinking of traveling east to perhaps Chicago. As we looked at the miles between here and there, we began to feel overwhelmed by the car trip. Well I thought that maybe we could fly in and rent a car and that started the internet search for cheap flights. One thing led to another and before we knew it we were sitting in our travel agents office booking a flight and two week accommodation to London.
This will be Bill’s third time to London and my second. London is a city that one could live in all their life and really not know it or see it all.
We were so excited about it that we asked my sister and her husband to come along with us. Through the luck of “it was meant to be”, they are joining us and will be on the same flight and in the same hotel. We are anxious to show them London for their first time.
Next Saturday, we leave for a two week destination holiday. I realized that this is the first time that we have stayed our complete two weeks holidays in one hotel. We must be getting older, because we are both really looking forward to it.
I plan to blog from England. Stay tuned and enjoy.

And who knows where the next adventure may take me.
WKH

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

By Mark Twain.