“Travel Like You Don’t Live There”

The title to this blog was actually one used in the American Way magazine on board a flight to New Jersey over Thanksgiving. It was such a catchy title that I had to read the whole thing. The article made me think about the traveling we’ve done and the traveling we’re doing.

Many years ago Terry’s brother came to visit us with a list of tourist attractions he wanted to see. He had just graduated from Duke Law School and many law firms were flying him around to interview. It wasn’t that he wanted to live in Washington but he wanted to visit us so agreed to interview for a position in Seattle. We were living in Vancouver, Washington at that time and didn’t have a clue where many of the places he wanted to see were. We only lived there. We weren’t tourists. It’s amazing how if you live in an area, you really don’t take the time to see it. However, others will travel hundreds or even thousands of miles to see what is almost in your backyard.

Some folks think the way to tour a place is to pretend you live there. However, that’s really backwards. If you travel as if you live in a place, you’ll miss so much. You’ll never see what’s really there. You’ll stop being a tourist and start being a homesteader. Many RV’ers do just this as they move into one park or another and stay pretty much planted for months on end. Isn’t the purpose of an RV wasted? Some never figure out what those wheels are supposed to be doing because it’s difficult for them to be constantly on the move. The compromise is to move into a park and become part of that park neighborhood. After settling in they visit local sites and attractions but only the local ones and never venturing too far. The whole idea or dream of seeing the USA flies out the window … at least temporarily. Or, maybe it ends up in a park model.

Other travelers really have the knack of it. They do their research and figure out what they want to see and that’s where they head. We’ve had friends who have decided they want to do specific scenic routes, historic battle fields or places of special interest to them. After doing all the research they can, they head in that direction. Wasn’t that the original plan? There are others who volunteer for positions in order to visit specific areas. Some folks have this traveling in an RV down pat while many others struggle with it. No matter what one does it’s always interesting to "share" travel stories around the campfires. There are certainly plenty of them.

We get sidetracked a lot. Our plans seem to change with the weather. Most of what we plan to do is written in chalk and tends to get erased when other ideas and plans pop up. Perhaps, it’s time to scratch out a bucket list and start working on it. It seems lots of folks have lists of places they want to see. A list wouldn’t be so bad. There are a lot of places we’d like to travel to and even some we’ve already been at. Making a list is not like we’d be making a commitment to do anything. Would it? We know we don’t like staying in one place too often or too long. We certainly don’t want to live every place we travel so the theme certainly works for us. We just seem to be doing some of this backwards.

So, here’s a question ….. what are a couple of the absolutely best sites you’ve ever visited while in your RV? We certainly learn a lot from other RV’ers through what they have seen and experienced. However, it’s not that we would like to go and do everything everyone else does. It’s just that it is interesting to hear about the places. I’m a gypsy at heart! We want to travel but not live in the places we travel to.

(My photos are irrelevant to this blog. I just wanted to post them. These are leftovers from recent outings except for the Christmas lights. Tammi did that one downtown NYC. I liked it so I “borrowed” it. )