On Travel
On vacation, and thinking about what it means to leave home behind
We took a small vacation. It feels small because it started as a detour. On the way home from the Wild Center last year, we took an extra night getting home. Much to our surprise and pleasure, we discovered (can you even say that if it’s been here since 1917?) a new-to-us (much better) ADK resort.
If you ignore the cars buzzing on road separating [Schroon Lake] and [The Lodge at Schroon Lake], I swear you could feel like you are in the 1930s. It is classic Adirondack Style Camp. For those of you who don’t speak Upstate New York, and who might speak Disney, think of it like part Saratoga Springs Resort and part Wilderness Lodge. My son likens it to Camp Crystal Lake in the Friday the 13th series, an apt comparison if you have also read this year’s God of the Woods. He also assures me that this is a good thing.
The original Lodge, formerly called the Brown Swan Club, is now the property’s restaurant and focal point: The Brown Swan. This space is not what made us come back, though. We returned for the activities offered, and its location an easy, 1.5 hour drive from our home.
If you want to know more about the time, I have been posting about it over on Instagram, Facebook, and Tik Tok. Here, however, I wanted to write a bit more about the experience of traveling. I especially think family travel is an interesting thing, don’t you agree?
Family Travel
Do you know that in 2020, just a few weeks before COVID changed our lives forever, my husband and I had seriously been discussing selling it all, getting a family camper, and taking a “gap year” adventure across the country? We even had the route planned out. I had a business idea, too: The Wandering Classroom. The idea was to take my education knowledge and write curriculum based on all of the places we traveled to, aimed at homeschooling or “road-schooling” families. My business had a lifetime and legitimacy (thanks to COVID) that was shorter than Charted — and I have only been around since May! Maybe it would have been the perfect time to pack it up for a while, if I hadn’t been so darn terrified.
That said, I love family travel. Or perhaps you can say that family travel is my love language. I like to brag that the first time I flew NYC-SFO non-stop was when I was “5” (actually, 4, but my mom encouraged me to say five because that was the cut-off). I do not quite understand the looks of horror that little tidbit gets me, but people who traveled in the 70s and 80s usually nod as if to wistfully say, “ah, pre-2001.”
So perhaps the next two facts will not surprise you:
I get really upset (enraged) when people make comments about kids just existing in the world.
I consider my own experiences traveling the world as a child as among the most precious gifts my single mom could ever have given me, and I want to give that to my own kids.
These two facts are why I was taken back by the New Yorker article called “The Case Against Travel” that I read when I got up at a too-early-on-vacation time. I encourage you to read it, but it’s from 2023, so there have likely been many more intelligent people writing on this. Here is the premise: People think travel is life-changing, but it makes us change where we go more than it actually changes us. The article talks a lot about the ethical implications of this idea.
But it seems to me that the author, Agnes Collard, gets some parts right and some parts wrong.
Here is where I agree:
Travel for the wrong reasons is definitely not going to make you into a better human.
I will go even further and say that travel when done in an inauthentic way can actually deplete you, and have negative, rippling consequences to your travel party and wherever your little posse of pain “explores” (as if it hadn’t been found before. SEE: first paragraph).
I could say more, but you get the idea.
Here is where we differ, respectfully because I really did enjoy the piece:
When a person travels to experience joy and pleasure with people, rather than in front of people, something magical can happen.
There are self-preservation rules that must be observed. Compromise on a group vacation may be inevitable (you may even like it if you open your mind), but certain boundaries should not be crossed.
Joy is not a Show
I like to say that “I am the Same Age as Facebook,” but not because I was born in 2005, but because I am the same age as Mark Zukerberg and his weirdly, pokey new website, Facebook, was developed for college students when I was in college. Though I recently deleted my personal account, it was pretty epic that up until April I signed in with a defunct and utterly useless cer4@geneseo.edu.alumni (an account that never existed).
And because we are the same age, I can confidently assert that co-opting JOY is where social media has become the most toxic. Pressing record on the camera rather than soaking in a moment, we perform more than we perceive.
If we are to be changed by an experience, we must by definition EXPERIENCE it. We sit down in dirt, wiggle our toes in sand, run through grass, dive into water. Experience pushes our comfort zone just a bit the manufacturer settings of a monotonous life.
Living for Their Moment
It will come as a shock to some people who are less wise than others that everything does not revolve around them. In fact, maybe my favorite memories are when I was the stage hand to some one else’s main character moment. Like, when my husband got to try falconry when he turned 30, or when my daughter went to the Bippity Boppity Boutique at four years old, and upon finishing was invited by her fairy godmother to join in a princess parade? Knowing that I was the magic maker behind the pixie dust or what-have-you is more than half of the fun. What is better than watching someone you love, love something?
Boundaries Bring You Closer
This might be controversial as well, but I believe in open-minded but firm personal boundaries. If there is something that you know will ruin your time, if it triggers something in you that is physically or emotionally painful, you really have to tell your travel party. Stop pretending that this is “nice,” especially if you hold that air of annoyance if you acquiesce to the group’s demands.
Having personal boundaries means that you respect yourself. I like that in friends, and I bet you do, too. Probably the smartest thing I have heard lately, and excuse me for not quoting this but it’s at trope-level now, is, “The only people who are hurt by you having boundaries, are those who benefitted from you having none.” Mic. Drop.
I would argue that when you hide what makes you uncomfortable, we separate ourselves from the group (even if you physically go along). In this “other” mindset that we have designed, how can we ever let go and fully participate? There are a few things that I think can help you get over yourself if you’re feeling bitter like adrenaline-pumping activities or humor. Both put you so in-contact with that moment that it is hard to stay in your head. The only problem is that depending on what you have, even unwillingly, agreed to experience may or may not leave you feeling scared, sick, traumatized, broke — or the most fun, all four!
The bottom line is: if our friends, families, or colleagues love or even like us, they will not want you to be uncomfortable. That is to say, if your boundaries do not impede on their top moment.
Corollary: Your Boundaries Should Not Be Imposed on Others
(This is a tough one for parents because often children cannot go without an adult)
If at all possible, I think good boundaries are for you, and not for others. They draw the line in the sand and say, “hey, I can’t handle crowds today. I am going to (specific activity), but I will meet you back at (mutually agreed upon activity).”
Parents, as I wrote above, I feel you on this, and it is absolutely a challenge when you have traveled a long distance or already spent the money. This is also a big reason that I feel like choosing the right partner is so important, but I digress.
However, regardless of your traveling situation, you have to start from a place of authenticity and open-mindedness. This is what feels good for me. I want to have this kind of experience. If you have doubts, get them out in the air before the trip. Even if you are the aforementioned “magic maker,” don’t get so caught up in the “act” that you forget that nothing awesome can be created without the magician.
Which brings me to…
Not to make this a sales pitch, but that’s why I made Charted. I was tired of going away and blowing up. And we are not perfect, by any means. But we are better because we take time to think about what things will be like before we get there. I think the best times are when we discuss these things beforehand, but like I said, a work in progress.
I would love to know about a trip you are planning, or an experience you had while traveling that got you to your core. I have so many, and in no particular order, here are some of my favorites:
Riding in a minivan across Scotland, France, and Germany with my mother and her friend, her friend’s husband, and their two teenage grandsons that could have been an alternate version of National Lampoon’s European Adventure (Big Ben! Parliment!)
Watching my daughter talk to Alice at age four (told you I’d get here). She started telling her her life story and a line started to form up behind us. I, instinctively, said, “Okay, let’s go. There are people waiting now,” and Alice just patted my arm and said, “Oh, no, no, no. She must go on,” and it made my daughter beam.
Dancing at the Full Moon Party with some of my best friends in Virgin Gorda (and a fire dancing singe himself in very questionable places).
Taking a cruise with 20 friends from my senior class, where we almost did not get on the boat because half our party was 18 and the other half was 17. Again, cue wistful nostalgia mixed with a healthy dose of, “how did I survive?”
Having a candlelit dinner on the beach on our honeymoon and feeling so grown up and brand new at the same time.
I would love for you to tell me yours, a dream that you have tucked away, or perhaps just a bunch of question marks and overwhelm that you are carrying. Let’s hear it.