The Power of Travel

 The Power of Travel

A house built
of bottles gave
lots of creative 
inspriation.

Travel is a pretty wonderful invention, or adventure, or whatever you want to call it.  It allows your family to explore other times, places, cultures, landscapes, and lifestyles.  Whether you're traveling across the street or around the world, travel allows you to right-size and ground-truth your space and size in the world.  In other words, when you get off the screens and go exploring, you realize that in many ways we're more alike than we are different.  You also realize that the differences are a spice of life...this is particularly true if you live in a cookie-cutter suburb or apartment building where everything is pretty similar.  

Beautiful places can bring 
the best in us.  

We've had the good fortune and blessing to spend quite a bit of time exploring around the US as a family.  Before children, my wife and I had made it to all of the lower 48 states and Hawaii.  By the time our youngest was two years old, we'd made it back to all of them at least once more.  Now that they're seven and eight, they haven't slowed down a bit, and we're writing this on a 10-day loop trip through the California coast and national parks.  Whatever the excuses are, they're probably not as valid as you think they are.  At no point in time as a human species, has travel been more convenient, affordable, or accessible.  When you think about our ancestors and the trouble and cost it would've taken to go "see the world" compared to $99 getaway flights from most major airports, we live in a blessed time. 

Building a castle on
the beach with washed
up bricks. 

When we have the chance to travel, we can realize that there are many great adventures to find both close to home and across the map.  Chances are, there are festivals, ethnic restaurants, historic markers...really whatever your passions are within a couple of hours' drive of where you live.  Within a three-day or so drive, chances are there are areas where people do life entirely differently from the way you do.  And a longer road trip or airplane flight, regions where life looks completely foreign.  By going to see some of these things, it helps you (and your kids) realize they're not the center of the universe.  It also helps them realize that they may be far more fortunate than they think they were before the trip.  

Seal watching in 
San Francisco.

Travel can also serve as a teaching point.  By doing research ahead of time, hitting key sites on the trip, and looking up things we visited on the trip, we can help our children learn research methods.  This before/during/after also helps us build anticipation and follow-up excitement so that the trip effectively continues far beyond the actual days on the road.  This teaching/learning not only helps our children, but also helps refresh topics we may have known once and learn new ones.  Travel is also great for facilitating learning conversations with our children.  Around every bend in the road are prompts for questions that can facilitate self-learning...and connection with your kids.  

Seeing a school bus
demolition derby race.

We've had several trips to ancient Native American sites up through the frontier of America.  When you realize those people were the same species as we modern people, it helps us understand that our capacity for hardship, hard work, and resilience is far greater than we often know.  On a recent stop in Death Valley, our quarter-mile hike full of "wow this is hot" type complaints was punctuated with a display about how, for five years, people filled wheelbarrows full of mud to boil out the borax, then 20 mule teams hauled the refined product more than a hundred miles to the railroad.  Talking through that really puts meal delivery and ridesharing in A/C in perspective.  

Becoming a 
miner in NV.

Travel also allows you to target the interests of your family.  This can be both seasonal and based on themes they're specifically interested in.  The seasonal aspect can include within the year - going to see the autumn colors in the mountains or the northeast...or it can be the "toddler-season" with kid's musuems and whatnot.  With road trips, you can also target the specific interests of your family.  One of our kids is pretty into space...we've detoured over the years to hit the Houston Space Center, Huntsville Space Center, Florida Space Coast, and other sites around the country to help keep the dream alive.  Using tools like Google My Maps to plot key points of interest, then chart a course maximizing your time between them have never been easier.  

Fishing in NE
and exploring
new species. 

As we wrap up the week - remember that travel is more affordable, accessible, and available than any time before in history.  It can be as challenging or costly as you want - 5 star resort hotel or camping along the way.  Also, remember the benefits of travel are pretty robust in both the short and long term.  We hope that you will embrace travel in the coming seasons of life.  When you get past the challenges or frustrations...and, as a person on an airplane told us back in the day, "pack an extra portion of patience" and hit the road.  

With you in the arena, from ours to yours...Happy Trails!

Call to Action: 

• Pick out a few get-started style trips that you can take in the next month.  They could be local or regional...but the point is to do something you wouldn't have otherwise done.  
• 1 - ___________________ 
• 2 - ___________________
• 3 - ___________________
• Discussion: Consider what you/your family could/would/should (level of commitment) and start/stop/sustain (action) in terms of traveling.  This is the time for conversation on what your style and future lifestyle of travel could/would/should look like.  

Further Reading, Motivation, and References:

- Google My Maps - https://mymaps.google.com/ 

- There are a ton of travel blogs out there - pick your favorites.  https://www.emilymkrause.com/