This is the first in a series of blog posts about travel from the WideFoc.us team.
This is a public service announcement.
If you value the experience of traveling, you should impose strict limits on the amount of time you spend staycationing – it can be habit-forming!
When I was asked to collaborate on our blog series about travel, it led me to confront this question: Why don't I travel? The last time I got on a plane, it was to go to my partner's family reunion in Muenster, Texas at the beginning of the year. Prior to that… let's not talk about how long we went without leaving Colorado. It's embarrassing!
[Image credit: Google Maps] You might be thinking that maybe we just don't enjoy travel, or don't see the value in it, but that isn't true at all. I love to travel. I have never been on an extended trip that I didn't enjoy.
Things I like about travel:
Gaining a new perspective on where I live
Geeking out about communication by comparing my experience of a given place to how others tend to describe it
Taking lots of pictures
Looking out the windows of planes, trains, and automobiles
Flying
Trying different food
Imagining living wherever the destination happens to be
Rolling a suitcase (seriously)
Packing (no joke)
Airports (yes, really)
Hopefully you're getting the idea this list doesn't have a logical ending point…
Things I don't like about travel:
…
…
(This part doesn't have anything in it.)
Malcolm, my partner, loves to travel even more than I do. So, why don't we do it more? Sure, we have our excuses: it's too expensive, finding clever ways to avoid the expenses is too complicated, our dogs are too high-maintenance, we don't have time. Blablablabla-jobs.
However, none of those are the real reasons why we don't travel. We don't travel because we staycation too much instead.
[Image credit: Google]
Malcolm and I are complete foodies. We are very attached to our extravagant, gourmet food. It's a vice. We love to cook, and we have made some amazing culinary creations, but we also really enjoy the luxury of not cooking and lounging in a fabulous restaurant. You might say that we travel with our taste buds.
To me, food is a truly fascinating art form. As a lifelong adherent to the rites of visual arts, I'll say this in words that I understand: Preparing food is a lot like painting – with tastes! You have your colors, textures, spaces, negative spaces, presentation, drama, design, and even storytelling, if you want to get really nerdy. I'm also interested in food sustainability and possibilities for reconciling fine dining with sound ethics in the food industry, but I'll admit to only having scratched the surface of the complex issues that involves.
I might have exaggerated about our love of cooking. The truth is, I love to invent recipes, and Malcolm is more partial to playing the role of cook's assistant, and then eating the results. The guy has faith, though. If I say something like, "Hey, let's make vodka soup with sausage, wild rice, and barley," or "I have an idea – apple mushroom brie pot pies!" he musters enough enthusiasm to say, "Okay!" He knows that I have a vision, and that he probably won't regret helping me bring the next creation to life. He's also getting much better at coming up with his own experiments.
[Image courtesy of Bacon and Other Bad Habits] It's hard to feel like we don't relax enough when we spend our weekends enjoying the most amazing food, drinks, and cocktails our creative minds (and budget) can conjure, as well as spending quality time with our families, friends, and dogs in an amazing place like Denver.
You might be thinking that there's no way that all the cooking, fine dining, and sunset-lit strolls could replace the lessons and experience gained from travel, even if one does live in Denver. If so, I'll heartily agree. We need to travel more. It's important. Let's start saving up for a trip immediately!
Then again… we're running low on fresh herbs, spices, asparagus, aged balsamic vinegar, and fish steaks. It's going to be tough to make pesto unless we replenish our supply of pinion nuts.
So, let's start saving up after we go downtown for sushi and try a new brand of sake!
—by Erin Maes
Erin Maes is a is a lifelong writer who is passionate about language, communications, storytelling, and how they differ across mediums and platforms.
