Go Ahead and Halve Your Adventure

Have you thought about halving your adventure? You know, that amazing trip you've been dying to take for years but can't seem to find the time and money to make happen? Yeah.  That adventure. If you want to make it happen and just don't know how, maybe now's the time modify your dream for the sake of making it more attainable.

While it's one thing to put off a trip when you are making steady progress toward actually taking that trip (e.g.-putting money in a savings account every month, waiting for a child to reach a certain age, etc.), it's quite another to say, year after year, "one day I'd love visit __________," without any sense of when you will finally put down money for the ticket to ___________.

Halving your dream vacation, or at least breaking it down into feasible and affordable segments, can finally get you out of the house, away from work, and on your way to experiencing the satisfaction of visiting a place you've held in your mind's eye for so long.

Take, for example, the Camino de Santiago (Way of Saint James), a pilgrimage route in Spain that has become an extremely popular destination for soul-seekers, cultural tourists, and hiking enthusiasts alike.  Though one can, in theory, start walking to Santiago de Compostela (the end point of the pilgrimage) from any point in Europe, the most popular route, and the one that many consider the "full" pilgrimage, runs from Saint Jean Pied de Port in France to the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.  On average, this journey takes five weeks, but who has five weeks to walk a pilgrimage route?  Quite a few people, it seems.  

Indeed, thousands of people make the five-week journey each year.  But if you don't have time to be one of them, does your next vacation necessarily have to be a staycation? Absolutely not.  After all, there is no rule that mandates your walking the entire pilgrimage route.  You can walk half.  Or a third.  Or a quarter.  And you will be in good company, because along with the myriad people that have walked the entire pilgrimage, many have also walked only a section or two.  

Other factors to consider when making travel goals more attainable include food, lodging, and tourist attractions with admission fees. Perhaps you've always wanted to take a grand tour of Europe, stay in nice hotels, and see every historic icon ever featured in a movie. That sounds amazing!  But is the trip ever going to happen?  

If you have your doubts, get serious about planning.  Do some research to gain a real sense of what such a trip would cost, and if the cost makes you cringe, start cutting back. Pick three countries instead of six.  Pick one luxury hotel instead of three.  Accept the fact that seeing an icon from the outside can be nearly as fun as visiting the expensive museum within.  Perhaps these sound like obvious suggestions, but all too often they are overlooked in favor of clinging to unrealistic fantasies that actually become barriers to travel.  And one more note: these suggestions aren't just for starving students.  Traveling simply and frugally, even if you are a working adult, won't make your trip less legitimate and inherently less enjoyable.   

It is certainly natural to want to "do it all" with the precious free time that work, family life, and other commitments afford us.  Sometimes, though, we just can't do it all, and embracing a shorter, less expensive itinerary may mean the difference between seeing something new in real life and seeing another travel documentary on Netflix.  Go ahead and call it copping out.  As for me, I'll remain a firm believe that halving your adventure is just a different way to have it.

  

Going It Alone: Myths and Realities

Enjoy traveling alone?  If so, then you’re not, actually, alone.  While many people say that they prefer traveling with a companion (or companions) many people also attest to the benefits of going solo.  Just google “traveling alone,” and, well, you can probably guess the rest.  Lots of results. Lots of blogs.  Lots of opinions from both travel “experts” (think Rick Steves) and people you may have passed at the grocery store yesterday. 

Nonetheless, a lot of uncertainty still exists around the theme of traveling alone.  On more than one occasion, mentioning that I travel alone has elicited questions or comments based on beliefs that do not fully represent the realities of solo travel.  Some of those myths are busted below:

Myth: Traveling alone is inherently dangerous.

Reality: There are smart ways to go about traveling alone, and there are not-so-smart ways to travel alone, and bad things can happens no matter how many people you travel with.  Indeed, traveling in groups sometimes gives people a false sense of security, despite the fact that groups are usually more conspicuous (and, therefore, obvious targets) than individuals.  Numbers, in fact, do not matter as much as being aware of one’s surroundings and the threats that may be present.  Be prepared by doing research on the country and cities you plan visit, and then adjust your plans accordingly.

Myth: To enjoy traveling alone you are probably (select one) introverted/escaping from your past/a loner/depressed.

Reality: You don’t have to be in the midst of a personal crisis to reap the benefits of solo travel and be justified in a desire to take a vacation by yourself.  While it is true that traveling alone can give you more quiet and more autonomy than you have in the company of friends and family, traveling alone can also make it easier to meet new people and form new friendships. Even better is the fact that when you travel alone, you get to choose how often you embrace solitude and how often you spend time with other travelers.

Myth: It’s boring to travel alone. 

Reality: Being on your own allows you to experience a place in a way that traveling with others does not.  This is not to say that one way is better than the other.  Indeed, I have been on many trips with my family and now cherish the collection of shared memories that we have from around the world.  On the other hand, I also cherish the memories I have from solo adventures and I love the fact that they have a different quality than memories made on trips with my family.  These experiences are branded in my mind in a different way because they are deeply personal and, in some cases, may never have happened if I hadn’t been by myself.

Myth: Traveling alone is hard and nerve-wracking.

Reality: This is not entirely false.  It can be hard to not have a travel companion to keep an eye on your oversized bag that won’t fit in the bathroom stall with you.  It can stressful to be lost in a city at night and have no friend to consult about how to get back to your hotel.  On the other hand, it can also be hard and nerve-wracking to find that your travel companion doesn’t want to go to the same restaurants or museums as you and has a different idea of what constitutes a good vacation.

Being on your own allows you to experience a place in a way that traveling with others does not.

If you want to travel alone and don’t know how to get going, start small.  Take day trips by yourself, and then work up to overnight and weekend trips.  Try solo traveling on for size.  If you like the fit, a longer solo adventure may be in your future, and then you, too, can do some myth-busting. 

Learning from the Work of Our Hands

When people learn that my summer work involves not only teaching students Spanish in South America but also guiding them through in-country service work, they often nod their heads in approval.  Giving back to communities, be they U.S. communities or overseas communities, is seen as a noble, generous way to spend one's time.  While I agree, I have also realized that it can be hard to articulate why volunteer work is, generally, a good thing to do.

One valuable aspect of volunteer work that is often overlooked is the exposure it gives young people to work itself, in particular, work with one's hands.  When a person has time to dedicate weeks and months to a cause, working directly with other people can have the most impact and be extremely enriching and rewarding.  When one does not have much time to dedicate to a cause, however, as is the case with my students when we are traveling in South America, it is often better to focus on projects that do not set up expectations of a continued relationship.  Spending two days at an orphanage, for example, could do more harm than good for children who may already struggle with feelings of abandonment.  Consequently, the projects I have engaged in with my students have involved a lot of trail maintenance, planting, building, and painting and not a lot of working directly with locals in need.

Even if a landscape does not look remarkably different when we leave, and even if a community still struggles with the effects of poverty, I still believe in the value of these projects.  For one thing, taking on a project as volunteers means that a local volunteer or paid worker does not have to do it and can focus on some other community need.  In addition, I appreciate how these projects give my students experience with manual labor, especially since, for the most part, my students are college-bound, have "white-collar" career aspirations, and come from stable families with the means to support their teens as they grow into adulthood.  This means that, in all likelihood, my students have done very little (if any) manual labor and will have to do very little (if any) manual labor in the future.  Does this matter?

Well, yes, because no matter how many hours my students dedicate in their future careers to sitting before a computer or sitting in meetings, their patterns of life will depend on those who do physically exhausting work--in fields and mines, among half-finished house frames and tall trees, and in any number of environments where people labor primarily with their hands.  Having a personal experience with this kind of work generally gives my students greater respect for those hold down physically-demanding jobs day in and day out.

And what about giving back?  Indeed, you might be wondering if all I care about is how my students grow in maturity by serving as volunteers.  This does matter to me, but I also believe that gaining greater respect for work that is sometimes looked down on can encourage greater generosity, tolerance, and social engagement in my students' adult lives.  In this way, learning a lot as we give a little of our time can contribute to society in ways we never could have anticipated.

Can the experience of building an outhouse create social change? Yes!