30 countries - and a dead travel bug
early traveler Blenheim Palace UK 1978
It’s a moment when many grip the armrest or cut off the circulation in their partner’s hand. Surprisingly, given my low tolerance for risk, I love it because it signals the start of an adventure and every adventure worth having makes you feel a little anxious.
This time, as the Airbus 330 accelerated down Pearson’s runway, the dark opening cello bars in the 2nd movement of Beethoven’s seventh symphony resonated from my ears right through to the bottom of my feet. And tears wet my cheeks. Not tears for fears (just for my GenXers), but from melancholy.
As the plane banked right to get on its flight path to Dublin, I looked across the lap of the young woman beside me. Late afternoon June sunlight glinted off the iconic tower of the city I’ve called home for 35 years. Somewhere directly below was my corner of that city, the one I found with Jack and where I now live alone in my little house.
I’d done this so many times before, often to meet a friend living his best international life. Other times I had Jack beside me, enroute to Europe to visit his family. But this time I was excited, a little nervous, and surprisingly emotional to be traveling alone for the first time in nearly 30 years.
I soon got the hang of solo travel on that Ireland trip. I chronicled the 15 things I learned in a five part blog series last summer. In the months since, though, I’ve thought about whether I need to travel this year, and I think the answer is no. Feels like maybe I was right three years ago when I wrote that COVID 19 killed the travel bug within me. That bug certainly had a good long run.
As I kid, I traveled to England, my parents’ homeland, a number of times, taking side trips into Wales and Scotland, just to say we did. This kind of travel prepared me well for my later trips with Jack - staying with family is a different kind of vacation. (Some might argue not a vacation at all!)
My first trip without my parents was also perhaps the least interesting trip I’ve taken: a Caribbean cruise I took with a high school friend in 1985. We had shore excursions in Jamaica, Aruba, Colombia, the San Blas Islands, and Panama. Oh sure, we had fun but I guess I’m just not a fan of having such a curated view of my destination. I also prefer having the flexibility unplanned trips provide. And I don’t really love hot weather. It was my first and likely last trip south.
Unsurprisingly, my maiden solo trip was a week-long stay in a hotel in Chelsea, London. From there, I explored museums and galleries, discovered free noon-time concerts at St. Martins in the Field, mooched around shops on The King’s Road, and ate exotic English fare like bangers and mash. I bought new shoes, without regard to whether they could accommodate orthotics. Indeed I put miles on shoes without any protest from my 20-something arches.
The solo travel bug had caught hold and two years later, I explored San Francisco in the same way - walking, eating, drinking - without a plan or a care in the world. My biggest trip alone was the month-long odyssey to New Zealand the year I turned 30.
When I took a job working for an international NGO the next year, work came with travel, a major appeal of the job. For five years, I was the administrator for meetings in Turkey, Germany, Holland, China, Korea, Hawaii, Australia, and back to New Zealand.
Had I been successful at my September 2001 job interview in Helsinski, my life would have launched on a completely different path. Instead, I went to law school at 35 where, still keen to travel, I secured a four month co-op internship in Belgium. From Brussels, I also crossed into Luxembourg and France, adding them to my growing list of countries visited.
In the period after law school and before Jack, I had Christmas vacations with that friend with the international life in Italy (where The Vatican is an easy one to add to the list), and the Czech Republic.
In the Jack years, he and I traveled to his home country, Poland, seven times, the ‘visiting family’ kind of vacation. Over those trips, we managed to squeeze in true vacation time together in Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, Ireland, Portugal, and several stops in England. Each was a rich and fun chance to catch a glimpse into other ways of life.
All tallied, that’s thirty countries visited. Seems like it might be enough. Maybe I really have fully cleared the travel bug virus.
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