Absolutely Everywhere

"Be patient, for the world is broad and wide." ~ Romeo and Juliet

Is it possible to look at too many travel photos? My Instagram feed is jammed with them. I follow travel photographers, travel and tourism bureaus, tour companies, travel magazines, people who live in my favorite places and post lots of pictures, and a variety hashtags for the places I really love, like #sweden and #stockholm (duh), things I really love, like #lighthouses, and places I hope to visit sooner than later, like #malta #argentina and #portugal. Sure, I follow my share of friends, dogs, a couple boulderers and runners, and few companies whose products I like, but by and large my feed filled with pretty pictures of places I dream of going. 

And that's the crux of it, actually. I look at all of these pictures - I could honestly scroll for hours - and want to go EVERYWHERE. Literally. No exaggeration. I never wanted to go to Italy, then Conde Nast (or some such magazine) started posting pictures and now I want to go to there. Same with Portugal (thus I now follow the hashtag). And Antarctica, Iceland (checking that box next month), The Netherlands, and Malta. Most of these places weren't on my radar before I started up with Instagram last year. Now I scroll and plan and get "homesick" for the road.

I think about it a lot. Provided I had access to clean underwear, how long would I need to be gone before I actually wanted to come home? Lest anyone think I have a crappy home life or hate my job (or hate America for that matter), I don't. I enjoy my life here. It's actually pretty cool. I run, write, play tennis, belong to two cool gyms, hang out with friends (on occasion), and love my dogs and where I live. I have things I should want to come back to. And I do want to. Sort of. It's just........................................................ 

I love traveling more. I see posts from friends on vacation -  "Can't wait to get home!" "Come on, United. Let's get this plane off the ground!" "So good to be HOME!!!!" - and I absolutely cannot relate. In my latest travels, the only thing I've looked forward to at home is access to a washer and a dryer. If I could get that abroad, there's a chance I'd never come home. 

One day I'll buy a one-way ticket to somewhere, anywhere really. Once I'm gone, I'll be gone. At least until the seasons change or I change hemispheres or climates and need different clothes. Ideally, my "home-base" would be a storage unit someplace centrally located with a large airport nearby. My sister doesn't know it yet, but I'm eyeing her basement in Minnesota (Minneapolis-St, Paul is less than an hour away from her house and it's a massive Delta hub). I plan to broach the subject next month when I'm there visiting. Even though I'm more than likely years away from my one-way ticket, it never hurts to lay a little groundwork ahead of time. Especially since it might take all those years to convince her.

I think about hypotheticals all the time. I come into enough money or can make enough writing to spend my time traveling. Where do I go first? Talk about option paralysis. Each time I look at my Instagram feed it changes. Stockholm. Why not start in my favorite city in the world? But... I've never been to South America and for some reason it's been calling. The Netherlands. Back to Australia, but the west coast this time or maybe Adelaide or Hobart. Israel. Morocco. San Miguel de Allende in Mexico. Yukon Territory. Faroe Islands. Portugal. Malta. The list is endless and ever-growing.

In the meantime, I'm lucky enough to be able to travel twice a year. Recently those trips have been in March/April (for my birthday) and October (to break up the monotony of the year). October 2018 is, of course, planned (Iceland) as is Spring 2019 (a brief stay in Scandinavia then Croatia). I'm already contemplating October 2019 (Malta, The Netherlands, or a road trip through Sweden lead the early voting) and I am seriously leaning toward Argentina for Spring 2020 (with maybe a detour to Antarctica to cross that continent off my running bucket list). 

It's a joyous sort of frustration for me. I look at pictures of all these places and I want to go NOW. Passport and one-way ticket in hand, current life be damned. Surely I'd find a way to make a little money before I maxed out my credit cards and ran through my savings. Surely. Fortunately, I'm a bit saner than that (at least at this point). But damn it can be tempting. I can't tell you how many times I see a picture of a place, think "Man, it'd be fun to run there!", and open up a travel app to find out how much a flight would be. 

Thus far, I search round-trips. One day though... I'll switch to one-way. That'll be an amazing day. Until then, I'll settle for hard work, patience, and my Instagram feed. Because I know, in time, I'll get there. Get there where? Absolutely everywhere.