There’s something about long-term travel that’s relaxing and addictive.  Travel soothes the soul and nourishes the mind.  Once hooked, it’s tough to not crave more.  When we are traveling, I am more relaxed and feel more stress-free than I have since I was a child.  Perhaps it’s because of our pre-trip extensive planning where no detail is overlooked and, upon arrival, everything is already on autopilot.  We use detailed checklists based on experience for planning and packing to ensure nothing is forgotten.  No stress, no fuss, no muss.

Prior to the trip, we pre-book the housing, the rental car (when and if needed), look at options for public transportation, locate nearby grocery stores and restaurants using Google Maps, and get a sense of what activities there are to do there.  But not rigidly so–the key to a relaxing trip is flexibility and not packing every day with Clark Griswold-type intensity (…from the movie Vacation).  We really don’t need to see the biggest ball of string in Nicaragua.  I only firm up the essentials.  After all, much of the fun of the trip is spontaneous game-day decisions and maintaining a slow, carefree attitude.  On the financial side, everything is setup to be automatic each month–I need only monitor from afar.  I could get hit by a bus today, have a one-way ticket punched to the Great Beyond (or Below as the case may be), and it would be months before Netflix realized I hadn’t watched a movie in a long time!

Each year, Heide and I start talking about next year’s trip(s) while we are wintering in warmer climates.  If you’re an ongoing reader of my blog, you know that the longer winter trip we make must be somewhere warm (e.g., Costa Rica, Nicaragua…).  Warm weather is our primary criterion from after Christmas until it’s time to put the boat back in the water in the spring.  Having lived almost all of my life in northeastern and central Pennsylvania, I’ve seen enough snow to last me the rest of my life (sorry, Ken Blankenhorn !!!).  However, there are places in the world, other than Central America, we want to see (e.g., Greece, Italy, perhaps a return to Germany and Turkey, Prague, Budapest, Scotland, Ireland, Spain, the Far East, etc.), just not in the winter.  We have a full docket.

At times, I’ve struggled with how to succinctly explain, to folks who ask, what we are doing on the long trips.  We really aren’t playing tourist and hitting all of the tourist excursions and ripoffs the typical Gringo would do here or out partying every night (little, but not that much).  We enjoy the simple life of spending time together, reading, exploring, and relaxing.  An interesting distinction we’ve made about our travels is the difference between vacation and living there.

One day this past summer while chatting about our plans for Nicaragua I said to Heide, “What are we going to do there for four months?”  So far, four months is our longest stint in anyone place.  Heide responded, “We’re going to live there.”  Her use of the word “live” echoed in my head.  It was a Eureka moment.  Living somewhere and immersing oneself in the environment is very different from vacationing.  Our primary intent is to spend the winter away from cold weather, learn the language of our host country, get to know the culture and customs different from our own (both historical and present day), and perhaps most importantly, get to know the people and their stories.  Vacationing, however, is more about seeing and experiencing things in the short-term and can be done year-round.  We still want to experience the language, culture and people while vacationing to be sure, but equally important are experiencing, for example, the view from the Acropolis in Greece, “hearing” the roar of the crowd in the Coliseum in Rome, or tapping your own Guinness at the brewery in Ireland all within a shorter time frame (perhaps 1-2 weeks each instead of 4 months).   For example, four months in Nicaragua is living there.  We are scheduled to take an 8-day cruise at the end of September to Canada and New England with some dear friends.  That’s a vacation, although, since I’m retired, I’m not sure from what it’s a vacation!!!

In my next post, I will provide more detailed descriptions of our planning, the type of housing, transportation we use and finally, a little something about how we arrange taking care of the financial side of life while away.  Stay tuned.