With the exception of the pandemic, I’ve consistently logged somewhere between 150,000-175,000 miles each year for the past ten years. I spoke at a US Army Base in Japan, rode a camel across the dunes of Arabian desert, danced the night away in Cartagena, and am one of about 2000 women to run all six World Major Marathons. But, I also spent a cold and sleepless night on a concrete floor in a Tennessee airport, was curled in fetal position for 24 hours of food poisoning in Patagonia, got harassed for hours while crossing the border from Jordan into Israel, and had to drink a Russian diplomat under the table to get back my travel visa after being too slow on the uptake about the bribe requested from the overnight Belarussian train porter.
(But that is another one of my “secret stories for another day” that I’ll tell you about if you reply and request it.)
All to say: I’m still never happier than when I have a passport in one hand and a ticket to anywhere in the other. Whether it is with friends, family, or just by myself, I’m stricken by wanderlust of epic proportions. It is a fatal case, I’m afraid. Like with all fatal cases, there is no cure, just the opportunity to make the disease more bearable. I’m writing this today from Peru, where I’m hiking Machu Picchu and trying not to faint at 12,000 ft altitude. (Get out your hankies and hear my tragic tale of woe, I know, I know.)
Friends gape in wonder when they keep tally of my volume of travel. But, here’s the thing: traveling is far easier when you do it all the time than when you do it sporadically. Why? Because one develops hacks and finds products that make the road feel like home.
Here are some of mine. And, if you do nothing else, do #10, all day, every day.
I really, REALLY, love to fly. And you can, too.
Now, if you’re reading this and you have a serious fear of flying, I’m not going to waste your time with tips and tricks, diminish the exquisite immediacy your phobia, or try to negotiate with you about why you are more (so, so much more) likely to die in a car crash. I’m just going to tell you to hit that little “x” in the top corner of your browser and go about your day.
I’m talking to the rest of you, those who see flying as a hassle, a chore, an annoyance. Take a moment and imagine with me if you saw the journey not as the path to the destination, but part of the destination itself. Wouldn’t that change everything?
Imagine the hours of cocooned focus on the book you’ve been meaning to read, the blog post you’ve been meaning to write, the candy you’ve been meaning to crush!
Imagine the online shopping, the festival of personalized snacks, the carousel of trashy movies!
Imagine the alone time for quiet, reflective meditation or, if you are an extrovert (…shudder…) the endless small talk with strangers!
And what’s even better? On the other side of that flight lies adventure. Delicious, sumptuous, magnificent adventure!
For me, the trip starts not when I arrive at my destination, but the minute I leave my house. The journey becomes part of the fun, even if that journey involves flight cancellations, travel delays, or any other unscheduled mishap. It’s just more of an opportunity to discover an unexpected friend, an unknown dive bar, an out of the way diner.
Wrap your heart around this certainty of life: Any hairy goal demands work, any juicy win extracts a measure, any desired destination includes a journey. What if we stopped hating the journey and started leaning into it, welcoming its generous gifts of left turns and right turns and u-turns? What if we left room in our carry-on for the failure and learning and renewal?
Wouldn’t we be more ready to embrace the adventure once we got there?
Happiness from Vacation
Did you know that the vast majority of happiness from a vacation comes not from the actual going on the vacation but from the planning of the vacation? In fact, studies show that those who did the planning and were actively anticipating the vacation actually enjoyed the vacation more than those who were just along for the ride.
So, if you are going to be doing some travel this summer, let me tell you the one thing I know to be true this week: The journey can be part of the fun… it you let it be.
Along the way, things will go well, and things will go poorly. Things will be utterly unexpected; you can’t control those things, but you can control how you handle them.
And, it’s that way in life, too, isn’t it? We can spend all this time waiting to get to our destinations, or we can look at our lives as the journeys that they are.
Frankly, I think the four worst words in the English language are:
“I’ll be happy when…”
“I’ll be happy when I get the promotion…”
“I’ll be happy when I lose ten pounds…”
“I’ll be happy when I get married…”
“I’ll be happy when I get divorced…”
I’d like to offer a different idea: let’s be happy now. Sure, the destination is somewhere up ahead. But, the journey? Wow, man, that’s right here, right now.
And if you’re sitting there thinking, “Cool, Laura… but how do I do that when I’ve got big goals, even bigger responsibilities, and a to-do list that laughs in my face?” — that’s why I made the Going All-In course.
It’s 14 days of short, powerful emails to help you figure out how to chase what you want without burning out, selling out, or waiting until everything’s perfect.
Because you shouldn’t have to choose between ambition and joy. You can build both.
This course is for the people with full calendars and full hearts who are ready to live full, limitless lives.
