What I Learned From our Trip and What We Packed

For years (well a little over two)now I have wanted to write an epilogue for our trip. I guess the fact that it has taken me this long to sit down and do this speaks volumes to what it is like to return from an experience like this. Maybe it just reflects what life is like when you don't find time to write everyday as I did on the trip. I have actually started working on this post several times, never finishing and continuing to have some sort of ending in the back of my mind. Although day to day life at home sucks you back in and makes it hard to reach back and reflect on past, intense, life changing experiences, like this trip was for me, and for us as a family, some deep things did plant themselves in my brain, body and spirit. Things that will not go away. I am going to list and talk about a few in this final post.

 This is what we would have looked like if we took a photo of us with our stuff before we went. Well almost because my jacket I bought in Japan, Dave's hat he got in Barcelona and Anika bought her sweater in England.

Just Dave's bags

1. Making a dream real is worth it.
I dreamed of taking a year off to travel for many years. It took tons of planning, saving and energy to make it happen. And it was worth very minute of effort. I feel pretty dam good about making it happen. Of course Dave supported this 100% and was a huge part of the effort that went into creating this experience for our family. I can't take all the credit : ) But having a dream and making it real is a way of giving yourself a gift, a precious, invaluable gift.

It can also leave you wondering well, what now? What's the next dream, what do I work toward making happen next?  I have been in that place since coming home from time to time, when not caught up in the day to day of life in one place. But mostly I think the next dream will reveal itself when its ready. So I try to be patient with that. I do know Dave and I will be taking another big trip of some kind in the future. There are still so many places to see and people to meet and things to try.



2. Life is full of possibilities
When people ask, and they seldom do, I say the number one thing I learned from taking a year off is that the world is full of possibilities and the main thing between you and those possibilities is yourself, your fears and insecurities. I have to remind myself of this, sometimes daily, as life distracts and pulls at me.

 2A.  There is always another bus
This is how I have come to think of life's possibilities. You can be waiting for a bus, wondering if and when it will get there. Sometimes you are wondering if it will even take you where you want to go. Or you can get on the wrong bus. The bus you think you want may never arrive but there will always be another bus to somewhere some time, and if there's not, something else will happen. So there are innumerable ways to make any journey and probably innumerable journeys as well.

All of our bags for one year

3. Traveling with a teenager has its challenges but being together as a family in this way was worth all the challenges.

We also learned that the three of us can be together almost 24 hours a day and survive. There were plenty of challenges between us, mostly between Anika and us, the adults. Many of these struggles would have been the same at home or on the road because they were just part of her development as a person. We had to learn early on to not expect her to experience things in the way we were or to care about the same things. We stopped making her do things with us within the first three months of the trip. She went out with us maybe 50% of the time. If she needed to stay in our lodging most of the time we let her. But now that we are home I find we can be together and even when its hard there is a closeness between us that I think you only have when you have shared something significant with each other. And we have a lot of good stories to tell others and remind each other about.

Everything that was in Dave's bags. Yes that is a Virgin of Guadelupe Surong bought on a much earlier trip in Mexico.

4. Most people are friendly and want to help you.
We had almost 100% positive experiences with people.  I feel better about human nature. Other than the house getting broken into in Greece, which could easily happen at home, our interactions with people were positive. Sure there was a grumpy person here or there but the vast majority went out of their way to be helpful or friendly. Even with all the bad news you hear, and terrible things you know people do to each other, the interpersonal experiences of this trip confirmed the good in humans for me more than anything else. And that our similarities are at least as strong, maybe stronger, than our differences.

5. It is easier than you think to dip your toe into another culture.
We found lots of ways to not be just tourists. There are so many ways to interact with other people. We stayed in peoples' homes, in ashrams, in a temple in Japan, in hostels, in Air BnB. Each of these lodgings alone offered an in to some one's day to day life.  Sometimes on the bus or on the street we would get to be with people and see what their lives are like. Or if we were in one place for a while we were invited to events or into homes giving us yet another view. One question we were asked often when we got home was how did you communicate. First almost every where there was someone who spoke a word or two of English, often much more. But even when no one spoke English there are so many more ways to communicate that just language. A smile did seem universal.

Dave's sticker that is now around the world

6. Coming Home can be Hard
We came home and there were three mass shootings in the first few months. There was a month of violence in Santa Cruz. We all got depressed and at first didn't know why. But we no longer had the freedom of the road. Anika had to start a new school and be with people her own age all day. I had to go back to work at a job I wasn't sure I wanted. The US seemed much more dangerous than most places we had been. People seemed louder, bigger, like they took up more space. There were too many choices in the super market so much consumerism and conspicuous consumption every where. At first all the negative aspects of our culture were glaring and saddening. But over time we settled back in and came back to appreciating our lives in Santa Cruz.

So now I feel like have have put an ending to this blog. I had a fantasy of keeping a blog going about my travels now that I am back. I really like travel writing. Maybe someday I will figure out how to find time for this and do everything else I need/want to do.

The one thing people do often ask is would you do it again? Yes, in a heart beat.