The End of the Beginning: What’s Next After 15 Months of Continuous Travel
After almost 15 months of continuous long-term travel (440 days to be exact), 3 continents, 23 countries, dozens of cities, towns, villages, islands, hikes, cross-country bike rides, planes, trains and automobiles– what’s next for us wild-hearted vagabonds?
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As astronaut Gene Cernan said during the final Apollo mission to the moon, “it’s not the end, it’s only the end of the beginning.” He was referring to all the exploring left to do in the solar system after those early days of space exploration. Yet, I think his sentiment can relate to many other parts of life. It’s really never “the end” until it’s, well, the end. It’s all about perception.
How we see the world and our circumstances has a lot to do with our general life’s outlook. Winston Churchill said it best, “a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” Even more poetic, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed, “we can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
Optimism is a choice, like choosing which shoes to put on today, the scuffed-up ones or the shinny ones. And yes, unbridled optimism can be annoying sometimes. And while the Larry David/George Castanza mentality certainly is entertaining to watch, I definitely don’t want to live in that headspace of constant annoyance and frustration.
So, what does one do post-long-term travel, when the adventure and excitement of the road has ended? I look at it more like hitting the pause button. Even more, it’s like lifting the needle of a record player, because travel is analog. You can hear the cracks and hiss when it’s playing, and when that arm is lifted, the record still goes round and round. All you need to do is place that needle back down to get the music playing again.
Gene said it back in 1972– it’s not end, just the end of the beginning. The music hasn’t stopped, the needle has just been lifted on this travel song and the next tune will blast from the speakers again soon. Until then, I guess I’m listening to Spotify.
Travel Recap
As a little travel recap of some of the places I had an opportunity to visit, here is one photo from each of the 23 countries I visited between October 2015 and December 2016 (in order).
Enjoy and I hope to post again soon!
