We have all been there, browsing through the internet of far-flung places dreaming of all the place we long to visit, the things we’d see, the activities we’d do. We put them on a list either mental or physical for later. We may scroll through social media bombarded with advertisements for “cheap” travel options. We may not even be all that picky about the place and would happily take advantage of the last-minute deal, if not for the various barriers most of us face. How would we take time off?  Even if we have enough PTO to travel, we may in the middle of an important project that demands our attention. Who would watch our pets? Boarding them can sometimes be as expensive as the vacation. Plus, all the hidden fees and additional costs are not necessarily thought of when booking that flight. There’s hotels, taxis, buses and more. Even without these barriers, a trip may only come once a year, if we are lucky because it isn’t getting any cheaper to live. We have bills to pay and obligations to meet. Most of us are not travel bloggers where we get paid to travel. So our list gets ever longer and usually more expensive as time goes on, with few of those items ever getting checked off. Moreover, we find ourselves sitting at home day after day, scrolling through feed of influencers, travel sites and youtube videos and not actually going out and living!

But why do we want to travel so much? What is it we are truly hoping to experience? Do you wish to try new things? Experience different cultures? See history? Hear music? Speak with interesting people? Perhaps, learn a language? To embrace the spirit of adventure! Like you, I had a list of many things I would want to see, do, and experience and perhaps, blindly attached those things to specific places. However, much of what we want to experience in our travels is not attached to a specific place as those things can be as mobile as we are. Want to taste authentic French food? A quick google search can lead me to a restaurant owned by a French couple just 40 minutes away. Want to visit a Thai temple? Perhaps, there is one only two hours away, beautifully constructed and looks as if it were translocated right out of south east Asia.

You may find that they hold services on Sunday and that the experience of attending a service is far more immersive and informative of Thai culture than simply touring one among a throng of other tourists where the sacredness of the space has been transformed into a hallowed capitalist ghost of its former self – as was my experience with Notre Dam. Oh, the history of the place was still there but it did not hold a candle to entering the Basilica of Sacré Coeur de Montmartre most notably because the tourists were an afterthought. You were welcome to come in, but you could not take pictures, you were required to be quiet and respectful of the worship which was still ongoing. The Notre Dam was interesting, but I could have acquired the same experience from a book and some google image searches as it was a soulless enterprise. The Basilica was an immersion into French Catholic culture. One may very well find a much more authentic experience going to a small temple or other place of worship in their own backyard than traveling around the world to a tourist trap. This is what I mean by not blindly attaching an experience to a place.  

Now of course if seeing the Great Wall of China in person is on your list the likelihood of you seeing it elsewhere is quite slim. However, there are things about China that you could experience in your area. For instance, each year Philadelphia (in my backyard of Pennsylvania) hosts a phenomenal Chinese festival showcasing authentic Chinese culture and heritage, music, art, cuisine, language, and people. I had the opportunity of seeing a Chinese art installment at a university while visiting friends in Michigan and the Detroit Institute of Art has an entire section devoted to China allowing me to see both modern and classical eras of Chinese art. I have had the great pleasure of experiencing the culture of China though the likelihood of me going there is quite slim as there are other places that I have prioritized above China on my list of places to go. In Washington, they hold an annual Cherry Blossom Festival which showcases Japanese Culture. Despite being on nearly the other side of the world, a quick car ride and the right timing is all I need to enjoy authentic Asian culture.

The point is not to knock traveling. There is certainly a place for it. The point is that we do not need to travel far to start checking things off our list and live in the spirit of adventure we long for. Most of us do not have jobs which afford us the means to travel as often as we like or experience the things we want to experience whilst traveling. We are not travel bloggers, social media influencers or possessors of rich spouses who can send us off on holiday whenever the mood strikes us. We are middle class or poor who yearn to go on our own adventures, to see and experience the wide world. I hope that my simple record of my adventures closer to home (and a few abroad) will encourage you to embrace the spirit of adventure, to get creative with your bucket list and develop a better self-understanding of what you truly want out of life to live it to its fullest right where you are.