Why Do We Travel?

Camping in the Sahara Desert, Morocco 2017

As frequent presenters for the Mid Valley Travel Club meetings, we were asked to create a brief profile of ourselves as travelers over the years. That led us to the big question of why we travel. To answer that, we needed to reflect on our travel history.

 Modest Travel Roots

Kathy in Vienna, 1969

We grew up in modest middle-class families where money always seemed to be tight. Kathy’s family never traveled, but she took a big leap by becoming an AFS exchange student for her high school junior year in Vienna Austria. I grew up in Colorado, and we camped a lot, and even camped on our way to the West and East Coasts. Those were among my happiest childhood memories.

Catching the Travel Bug During Our College Years

Both of us wanted to experience different places for college. Kathy went to Grinnell Iowa and spent her sophomore year at the University of Salzburg, traveled for a couple of months, then worked as a translator at the 72 Olympics in Munich. She became hooked on international travel.

Some kind Nepalese who took me in on a snowy night 
and fed me the only egg their chicken had laid that week

 I went to Lewis & Clark in Portland and had never been on an airplane until I was 19. It’s a very long story of serendipity, but I ended up traveling much of my junior year through South Asia for $2 per day. I trekked alone in Nepal for a month, explored much of India by 3^rd class train for two months, then to Pakistan and over the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan. From there, Iran and Turkey. Looking back, I don’t know how I pulled it off. But it changed the trajectory of my life big time, just as Kathy’s overseas living had changed hers.

 1977—The Beginnings of Our Life and Travels Together

Thangboche Monastery Nepal, 1977

What initially attracted us to each other when we met in 1975 was our mutual love of travel and adventure. For our honeymoon, we backpacked to the base camp of Mt. Everest without porters or guides, spending the nights in villagers’ homes. We also explored some of northern India.

1978-80—Peace Corps and Travel

Life was never the same when we returned from Nepal and India. We joined the Peace Corps on a whim, and six months later found ourselves in Malaysia for the next 2 ¼ years. We had our challenges but stuck it out. It was a special bonding time in our 2nd and 3rd years of marriage. And we had some cheap travel opportunities with Thailand and Indonesia nearby. After our service we traveled four months, mostly in Burma and India.

Our Peace Corps home in
Northern Malaysia, 1979

 

Crossing a border from Southern Nepal into India.  Our "hotel" was a night in the 

jail because the policeman said he was too tired to process us. The three 

of us went out for dinner together at the night market, and we paid. 1980

Cruising, 1980 style. On our way  from
Goa to Bombay, where we caught a plane home

1981-2003—Travel Doldrums

We started a business, had kids, hosted exchange students, and served on civic committees and non-profit boards. Travel was limited by school schedules, work obligations, and money. But we camped and did short trips to Mexico, Hawaii, Costa Rica, and Belize with the kids. They loved it, and so did we.

 

2004-2017—Empty Nesters

Bicycling in Vietnam with Shanti & Skyler 2013

We enjoyed our newfound freedom to choose our own friends and to travel, even though we still had work responsibilities. We started off by visiting Skyler and her Italian host family in southern Italy. Then we took Kathy’s parents to retrace her father’s WWII steps from Normandy to Nuremberg. We undertook Rotary projects abroad, took European bicycle trips, spent our 30^th wedding anniversary in southern India, and bicycled Vietnam with our adult kids. In 2011 we bought a small used Airstream and started exploring the States.

A life-changing acquisition. We've made many
Airstream friends and traveled to places all over
the USA we would never had visited otherwise.

 

2018-Now—Retired

Over half of the 53 countries we visited were during our retirement years, and only a few of them were part of an organized tour.  Our first year of retirement included a work project and safari in Tanzania, visiting Peace Corps volunteers in Nicaragua, hiking and bicycling in southern Japan, and driving around Scotland after our daughter’s London wedding.

 

Santiago de Compolestela, Spain 2022 

But the most significant thing we did for our relationship since Peace Corps and having kids was to walk the 500-mile Camino de Santiago in 2018. We walked a shortened version in 2019 via Portugal, then the full version again in 2022. We loved savoring a European country step-by step at two miles per hour.

 Much of our retirement travel revolves around Hazel, our only grandchild, near London. We try to help out and go there about two-three times a year and travel another two-three months. London is a great jumping-off point.

 

Always a delightful arrival at Heathrow!

So, What Can We Learn from the Above?

 

1. Travel has become a part of our past and who we are. We’re comfortable with it. We’re always thinking about the next trip after the one we’re about to take. We identify as travelers, not tourists.

2. We love adventure and surprises, not knowing how the day will unfold. It keeps us alert and on our toes. The constant problem solving and decision-making can be tiring, but we think it helps keep us young at heart. However, as we age, we are starting to opt for more comfort and predictability.

 

Happening upon and enthusiastically participating in
a spray foam fight at Carnivale in Cuzco, Peru 2014

3. We’re curious about the world, its people, history, scenery, and architecture. We love meeting people and experiencing their food and culture. Some of our fondest memories are of interactions we had with people.

4. Travel gives us a perspective on so many things, and the best byproduct of that perspective is gratitude for just how good we and most Americans have it in so many ways. Coming home is always a delight.

 

How long can we keep this up? 

We’re not sure, but we’re hoping that as long as we can climb stairs with our luggage and lift it into the overhead bins, we’ll continue. Likewise with hitching and safely towing our trailer. Travel truly motivates us to stay in shape. 

A recent article we read sheds new light on this. Called 12-15 Good Years, it is one of the best retirement planning articles we’ve ever read.  The premise is that the average person at age 60 has about 12-15 years of active retirement before slowing down. At first we didn’t believe that. Then we started thinking about the last couple of years as the aches, pains, and diminished ambition started kicking in. 

Looking backward, we’re glad we did what we could, while we could, especially since some places are off limits or are no longer safe. And perhaps another 500-mile Camino next year may not be physically possible. But for the foreseeable future, our motto continues to be what we can, while we can. 

Turning 75 at our most favorite place in the world

“What We Can, While We Can”

“What We Could, While We Could”