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Redefining 'affordable travel'
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Laguna Beach.
“I wanna go to New Zealand so bad,” my brother laments as we sit watching the Travel Channel together. He’s quiet for a moment, lost in the thought of being able to jump on a non-stop flight to Frodo’s house, before continuing. “Hell, I’d like to be able to go to Fresno, but I can’t even afford that!”
I see this train wreck of thought all too often: travel as an all or nothing luxury that too many of us can’t afford given the current financial climate. So here’s my question: What constitutes travel? Is it qualified by a road trip, an airline ticket, a fruity beverage with a tiny little umbrella for garnish? Does it require a minimum time span, an “overnighter” so to speak, packing, a completely different zip code than your zip of residence? My answer to all these questions used to be yes, yes, yes, yes and yes!
Of course you have to pack and leave the doldrums of your day to day life behind as fast as possible! Naturally you have to get out of dodge, preferably to somewhere tropical where the temptation never to return to your cubicle world pulls at your pant leg like a relentless toddler. I’ve been there! Every day as I sit in my box tied to my chair with a headset stapled to my dome, staring at the picture I pinned up of a white sand beach out in the middle of nowhere, I’m there! Every time I hear the Southwest commercials asking me if I “wanna get away?” I can’t scream my answer fast enough, “YES!!!! JUST TAKE ME AWAY!!!!” After all, as Peter from Office Space says, “…we don't have a lot of time on this earth! We weren't meant to spend it this way. Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day…”
Now more than ever we need travel. Going on vacation is a perfect reminder that at the core of our being is a beautiful concept called free-will, we’re not really “trapped” or stuck, that life can still be fun and relaxing, and that it is, above all, still ours. But, for the vast majority of us, the 9-5er is a necessary evil that keeps food on the table a roof over our heads, and doesn’t allow a lot of time for much else, let alone travel. And that’s if you’re even fortunate enough to have a soul sucking job right now! The other half of us, (the half like my brother) don’t have a job that would be able to afford the slightest hope for travel. And yet, we still want to run away from that life too. But instead we sweep the idea of travel under the rug because we can’t find the time or money to entertain the fantasy.
We have to start thinking outside of the box, my people!
The last time I checked, we live in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the most sought after tourist destinations in the world! Our backyard is a big playground! And what did we like to do in our backyard when we were kids? Camp out! Spend the night in our backyard. I’d like to introduce the concept that “travel” doesn’t have to be a vast and complicated project, or some elaborate tour de force that requires months of planning. The idea of “summer vacation” or “spring break” must be banished from our vocabulary. Every weekend can be a vacation. For that matter, I encourage you to play hooky from work for a day and travel somewhere out of your zip code. “Travel” now means anything that gets you out of the house and away from a life that may be starting to resemble the movie Groundhog’s Day. We can and should be pitching tents in our proverbial backyards! This is not to say that the big vacation is out of the question! But if you just can’t afford the Big One, you shouldn’t throw the idea of at least a few little ones out the window!
I beg of you to remind yourself that life is short, and you owe it to yourself to get out and enjoy it. You may think that the topics I will cover may be a stretch as it pertains to your preconceived notion of “travel”, but I promise you this, it will always be creative and it will always be affordable, mainly because I’m broke. No more excuses! Get off your couch!
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