When people plan for travel, many consult their "bucket list," a list of things they want to do before they, er well, kick the bucket. I personally dislike the term bucket list, partly because of its reference to death and partly because it reduces lived experiences to a kind of check list. Visit Japan. Check. Visit Australia. Check. Sky dive. Check. To my mind, traveling opens the possibility for rich experiences yet to discover. I like the idea of an experience list instead.
Don't you just love fantasy? In my fantasy world that's how planning would go-- rich experiences first and practical considerations like we need a place to sleep would come much later. But my current reality is far from fantasy. We just sold where we were living and now we need a bed. For the second time this year, we are houseless.
Back story: In between short trips over the summer, we'd been living in our tiny ski condo, really our primary residence, until our scheduled October travel departure date. We'd planned to sell the condo close to the first of the year (once our house is ready) but apparently the urge to divest ourselves of real estate ties, to further untether, proved too strong. That and prices and demand recovered. Untethered we would be and without a reasonable place to sleep. Our home in Chicago sold in four days so of course the condo sold quickly too.
Rich travel experiences?
No. How about where should we sleep for two and a half weeks? For two people who had planned most aspects of their lives, we seemed a little random, even to us.
Since we were already booked on a cruise from Hawaii to French Polynesia and on to Sydney, Australia we thought we'll just add a first leg to the trip -- Vancouver, BC to Hawaii and around the islands. Problem solved. We'd have a bed, plenty of food, an exercise room, and distractions.
And we've lucked out because some rich experiences are in the mix -- tour of the USS Arizona Memorial, cycling to Kilauea volcano, hiking in Maui. Not bad for a random decision.
I believe there is a gap year lesson embedded in this story though I'm not completely clear what it is. Perhaps it is something like......after decades of responsible living, we need a little calculated randomness to help us transition into the next phase. Off we go.
