Tag: Deinfluencing

Sunflower Fields: Turn Towards the Light

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“I don’t think there’s anything on this planet that more trumpets life that the sunflower. For me, that’s because of the reason behind its name. Not because it looks like the sun but because it follows the sun. During the course of the day, the head tracks the journey of the sun across the sky. A satellite dish for sunshine. Wherever light is, no matter how weak, these flowers will find it. And that’s such an admirable thing. And such a lesson in life.” – Tim Firth

I have always loved sunflowers, but after hearing that quote, I adored them. I loved that they followed the light even when the sun was hidden away. No matter how dark their world becomes they turn to the light. Isn’t that just what we humans fail to do so often when our lives become darkened? What a beautiful reminder and how special it is that they do so resemble the sun to give us some of the light they have taken into themselves? 

When one thinks of sunflower fields, one may think of the endless fields of Tuscany and forget to look in one’s own backyard. I will say that sunflower fields have been gaining popularity, at least in my area with farmers now taking time to plant fields for visitors to come and enjoy. Most will allow you to leave with a single memento of your visit. One flower to bring you sunshine. At Second Mountain, you are encouraged to bring as many containers as you can because for just a few dollars, you can pick as many sunflowers as you desire! And I did! 

My mother and I drove up at the very end of the sunflower season to catch the last blooms of the season. We had been carefully awaiting this for almost a year as we had learned of this hidden gem to the north of us from a work colleague shortly after the sunflower season had ended. Unfortunately, peak sunflower season is in August which usually has beastly weather of heat and humidity. Being as my mother is an asthmatic those two are not the greatest combination for her being able to enjoy the great outdoors. Being allergic to bees, it was important for me to avoid warmer days when they would be more active, so we carefully watched both their facebook page and the weather, hoping for just the right conditions. Finally, at the end of the season the weather was just right; we packed up our car with containers and made the hour-long drive up north. 

Even in their last days the fields were a glorious feast for the eyes. The vibrant flowers naturally were turned towards the evening sun. A rock cover band played in the background, which if you enjoy such things, I am certain it added to the enjoyment. Not being a fan of such things, I did not find it particularly enjoyable. I would have preferred a cello performance or swing band, but to each their own. I am not one to dictate to others what sort of music they can listen to or even if music should be playing. Just if you do visit a field with live music, bring your earbuds or headphones so that you can put on something you do enjoy if the music isn’t to your taste. Then again, even if there isn’t a live band, bring them anyway. It is good to have music close at hand to enhance an experience or help drown out unpleasant noise. The small crowd of people were taking photos and harvesting flowers. I took some time to photograph the sunflowers to help capture the glory of the fields, even the ones who were nearing the end of their life cycle.

Perhaps, I am a bit gothic in nature, but I always found the end of the growing season to be beautiful in its own right. There is a certain loveliness to the death of a flower; having lived brilliantly and gloriously, it now loses its color, going quietly into that good night to make way for the next season. There is a quiet stillness about it as it is no longer abuzz with visitors, often robbed of its seeds by birds or other creatures. It is only a shadow of itself, like an echo. What struck me as even in their last days, they still were turned faithfully to the sun, never losing the light. 

Turning back to the brighter field, I gathered up sunflowers in my arms until I could carry no more. Walking through the golden sea, with my arms filled with flowers felt almost surreal, as if I had entered a dream. The flowers stand proud as if they are sentinels of the very sun itself. Stray breezes wind their way through the fields causing some to break their vigil to dance, perhaps rebelliously, but more likely for the sheer joy of our closest star. 


Personally, I enjoyed the fields most when the band was quiet and I could simply enjoy the wonder of nature. To have time to disconnect from the world and tune into the natural world. It was almost transformative to be in their midst, laden with the flowers, as if I were about to become a nature spirit one with the fields. The quiet of the fields let me really listen to the ecosystem going on around me. The buzz of insects and the way the wind rustled through the flowers. Truly, a sunflower field is summer incarnate and I made certain to fill my car with lots of summer. 

While I admonish your dear reader to not live in regret, I do have a small regret from our trip. Not having more containers to bring even more sunflowers home! Part of the joy of our trip was having a house filled with sunflowers. Every corner of our living room boasted these bright blooms. It was like we had brought the sunflower fields home with us! They lasted for about a week and a half which more than made the trek worth it, even though there were closer fields nearby which were just as glorious to witness. 

How can you visit a sunflower field?

Unfortunately, most of the sunflower fields will not permit you to cut their flowers by the bucket full. So if you are looking for the ability to bring as much of summer home with you as possible, that may be a bit tricky or cost you quite a bit more than my $10 admission. However, there are plenty of places which offer sunflower fields to visit and photograph. Personally, the bigger the fields the better they are, but do not count out the smaller fields, for their charm. 

I encourage you to take your time when visiting. Don’t fill it up with endless photos but rather take moments to pause and drink in the moment. The blossoms of the sunflowers are the last hurrah of summer before the leaves begin to turn and fall all too quickly becomes winter. Bask in the warmth of the season, let it seep into your bones for you will need those memories when the wind roars and cuts through to your core. Enjoy the brightness of the yellow blossoms, because color will be slowly drained away after one last defiant show by the trees. Take the memories with you into the winter of life so that way when the darkness comes, you can recall the lessons of the sunflower and turn towards the light. 

Completed: Late Summer 2022

Miles from home: 45

Cost: $10

The Long Haul 

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We live in a right now world. We have amazon next day delivery. We have Netflix to stream movies directly to us. We can download our videogames off steam. Instantly find the answer using google. There are few things in life that we have to wait for which fuels our desire for instant gratification. Even a lot of our bucket list items are intended for an afternoon or a week. We spent the week backpacking through a European country, cross it off the list. It may have required some forethought and planning, but it was still done relatively quickly. But what about those things that require a long time, like learning a language or losing a lot weight? How about mastering a skill like blacksmithing or an instrument?

Learn German in 90 days! As someone who took it for 8 years of her life and spent 5 months in the country speaking it, the book is a failure. It wasn’t even useful as a review of the language after not speaking it for nearly 10 years. Get massive biceps gains in just one day with this crazy method! I had nothing to lose but a day, my biceps were sore. They did not grow massively, I assure you. Fad diets and diet pills are probably the worst of these items because not only do they not work in the long run, they can be incredibly damaging. They do not help you keep the weight off and may impact your health in the long term to make managing weight even more difficult than before. 

At the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Learning German wasn’t done in a day, but years.

Some of our goals and experiences are going to be things we have to do for the long haul. You want to learn a skill and not just try a skill, you’re going to have to put in the time, effort and sometimes expense to do so. I could do the free version of duolingo but after 5 mistakes, I would either have to wait hours for the hearts to recharge or purchase more hearts. I may as well pay for the monthly plan to help me achieve my language learning goals as I am reviewing German and learning Spanish. I’ve been at it for almost a year now and my German is almost back to where it was at the end of college, and my Spanish is still very basic. Granted, I only spend about 15 minutes a day on either language so because I don’t put in my time, my results aren’t as fast.

If I truly wanted to learn how to forge weapons, I would need to go weekly to the forge, buy my own steel and work hard to develop the skills necessary to make beautiful weapons. Heck if I really wanted to learn how to do it, I would learn smelting as well to master the entire process. Not only would this require time, it would require me to sacrifice other things as well. One can either be a jack of all trades or a master of one. If I spent my time at the forge, I probably wouldn’t have time to devote to my violin. My choosing the violin, I am saying no to many other activities that might fill my time. I’m not drawing or taking photographs. I’m not learning computer programming. Pursuits that I have at times toyed with but ultimately did not devote myself to. 

Sometimes we dabble in things, we may for instance take a six of twelve week course in photography or ceramics. We may take a single lesson in glassblowing or falconry. We know that these things will not confer onto us any modicum of true skill, but the taste is enough to satisfy. These are another form of “good enough” which I discussed in another post. 

However, for something we truly want to master. It requires something we have seemingly precious little of, time. One cannot become fluent in a language with a workshop or a twelve week class. It took me nearly eight years to become conversational in German and that was with semi-daily practice as I took it in both High School and college. It became quite stagnant with disuse. For one to be able to say one is fluent in a language it requires daily practice and use or else the most you will be able to say is that at one time you were fluent, but no longer. Oh it comes back quickly enough when you’re thrown in a situation requiring the language, but you are clumsy and stupid with it, the rules have gotten all muddled up in your brain and really why did the ancients insist on such an obtuse grammatical rule as changing the article based on the case? Why can’t the German “the” be, “Der, die, das, den, dem, or des”?

Taking a glass blowing class: To become proficient would takes weeks, to master would take years.

I encourage you to be judicious with the things you pick and not to overindulge in your ideas of what could be. I devote myself to just a few daily pursuits because frankly, I am a busy person. I haven’t the time to do much else. I have carefully chosen a few things that I want to do well that speak to me personally more than other activities and rarely skip on doing them. Attempting to cram in more items would mean not doing any of them all that well and I may as well not bother with more than the occasional workshop or short course on the subject. 

Now dear reader, you will not be able to become a multilingual, black belt in karate, computer engineer, doctor, guitar player, chess grandmaster, and astronaut, not unless you suddenly come into a lot of wealth and find yourself with both the time, discipline, coaches and tutors to achieve such a thing. Even then I would imagine, it would take a good ten years or so to achieve any of that. If you are not willing to put in the time and effort, it would be best to eliminate the mastery of the thing and go with simply trying the thing instead. There is nothing wrong with that and no shame in the decision. Some people are meant to be jacks-of-all-trades and masters-of-none and there are those who are meant to master one thing and be amazing at it. This is what you must consider dear reader. There are things that you want to accomplish that will not be done on a weekend or in two or three months. They may be life long pursuits that require daily practice to truly achieve the things you want to achieve with them. They will require you to give up other items in order to make room for them. By all means pick that which gives you joy and makes your heart sing. The journey will be long, frustrating and trying, but the reward will be sweet. 

Good Enough

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There are many experiences that absolutely require “authenticity”. They require the larger cultural context of a given region, country, ethnicity, culture, etc. to be the genuine item. There are many others that don’t require much more than themselves. These are the “good enough” items that clear the bar of the Bucket List without the rest of trappings of a given thing (often those trappings require you to hop on a plane and go to a different country). 

I often work backwards to my “good enoughs”. I may find myself dreaming of going to Japan. I may picture walking through a traditional Japanese house, enjoying a tea ceremony, taking in a Japanese garden, visiting one of their Buddhist temples, strolling through the bamboo, seeing the cherry blossoms, eating their street food, and seeing demonstrations of their weaponry and armor. Upon reflection, I realized I could do almost all of these things here in America. I was able to go to the Japanese Gardens with the tea house and enjoy a tea ceremony. I went down to the annual cherry blossom festival in D.C. and enjoyed street food, weapons demonstrations, music, fashion and more. These are my “good enoughs”. I didn’t need to go to Japan in order to say that I experienced the genuine item, because I found them here.

By thinking about a given Bucket List place and considering what I wanted to get out of a trip there, I was able to then build up a list of things to find nearby. I really want to see the lavender fields in France. I found a lavender field within driving distance to go visit, the same with the sunflower fields of Italy and grape stomping. Some things may be more accessible than you might imagine. I have been consistently surprised at what’s in my own backyard and what I could potentially do.

What makes a genuine item, “genuine”? It is often up to our own ideas and definitions. There may be people who say that unless I strolled through the crowded streets of Tokyo and ordered a ramen bowl from a street vendor in Japanese, I didn’t have the real Japanese experience. Perhaps, but I tend to feel that such a view comes from self-important snobs trying to aggrandize their own experiences at the expense of trying to cheapen the experiences of others. Don’t fall for the lie that the only “genuine”, “authentic” thing has to be done in the context of the “homeland” or that the necessary cultural context to appreciate them can only be achieved in a certain location. 

When visiting the rainforest in Costa Rica, they took us into a butterfly house. The butterfly house in Hershey is just as lovely and just as amazing. Unless you are a butterfly expert, you aren’t going to notice that the ones in Hershey, PA are a mix of various tropical butterflies vs. the 100% butterflies exclusively from Costa Rica and frankly, does it matter? Don’t let your friend who is a butterfly expert ruin it for you by telling you how this species would just never be seen in the wild with this other species. It was still amazing to see the butterfly house in the rainforest, but I could have skipped the butterfly house and been perfectly fine. I did go on a small hike through the rainforest after the butterfly house to see a waterfall. For me hiking through the rainforest isn’t something that can be re-created in America. For someone else, maybe the fake rainforest at Disney World is good enough. 

It is up to you to make the decision about what constitutes as “good enough”. If it met the desired outcome of what you wanted then it is good enough and no one gets to decide what that is other than you. You are a unique individual with unique reasons for wanting to have an item on your list. What might be good enough for you isn’t good enough for someone else, but they don’t get to dictate that to you and you don’t get to dictate that to them. 

I have had a tea ceremony at the Japanese Gardens and also in the crowded, noisy basement of a church during a tea festival. Surprisingly, I enjoyed the second more because it was a more intimate affair. It speaks to her skill as a hostess that I do not really remember the crowd or the noise, only the calm and meditative nature of the ceremony. She created a space of serenity among chaos. The noise seemed to melt away as we conversed and made light conversation. I can still taste the tea on my tongue even now. Given that if I did go to Japan and schedule a tea ceremony to achieve the same level of intimacy I would have to pay a fairly high premium. For me, that is good enough and if/when I go to Japan a tea ceremony isn’t something that is going to be on my must do list. That isn’t to say I wouldn’t do one, just it’s not on my list of musts and can be sacrificed to allow me to do something else. 

In fact after meeting so many “good enough”s you may find that certain places begin to lose their appeal. For example, I have been to so many museums with egyptian artifacts that honestly, Egypt isn’t that high on my list of places to go. I would rather see the Mayan pyramids to see pyramids. When I was younger, I had a much stronger desire to see Egypt because what I really wanted to see was the artifacts. However, despite checking off so many things on my Japan list, I still want to go to Japan. For some places, my good enoughs have only enhanced my desire to go whereas for others the desire has decreased. 

Dancing with Wolves

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We humans seem to have a love-hate relationship with wolves. In fairy tales and folklore, wolves are often seen as evil. It was after all the big, bad wolf that ate Little Red Riding Hood and blew down the houses of the three little pigs. Two wolves will herald the apocalypse in Norse Mythology. They were hunted to almost extinction because of their “threat” to farmers and people. Up until more recent times when every supernatural being got a sexy makeover, werewolves were considered hideous monsters. 

Yet, we know that man’s best friend came from a wolf or shared a common ancestor to the wolf. There are also folktales and myths of good wolves. The founders of Rome were raised by a she-wolf.  In Egypt, it was a wolf that separated the heavens and the earth and protected the pharaoh and his army. The Wolf-Kamey of Japan protects people from disease and other disasters. Wolves are totem animals, spirit guides and more. 

Though to be honest many of the apex predators enjoy a similar treatment, bears, tigers, lions and crocodiles to name a few. Most of these are both revered and feared subjected to various treatments depending on the prevailing thought of the day. Unfortunately, for many of these creatures the previous thought was destruction and in some areas continues to be.  Wolves have spent many years on the endangered species list with many of them disappearing from areas they had previously reigned for thousands of years occupying only 10% of their previous range. Their return to places like Yellowstone were hailed across the nation as a huge win for conservation efforts. Their return actually demonstrated how critical they are to other species as their arrival helped support plant life, birds, and other mammals. There is no substitute for an ecosystem’s apex predator. 

One of the larger packs at the sanctuary

With education public support has slowly grown over the years for wolves and with that support people’s love of them. Unfortunately, this has led to some negative consequences for some individual wolves. For some insane, unbeknownst reason, people think that they should keep wolves as pets. They also think that for things like tigers, but I digress. Wild animals are wild animals and are not like your dog. Sadly, this means that they are often mishandled and ill treated. However, because of their intense interaction with humans this also means they are unsuitable to return to the wild. 

This is where the PA Wolf Sanctuary comes in. For over 40 years, they have provided a home for wolves and wolf-dog hybrids where these beautiful creatures can live out their days in an environment suited to their needs with people who understand and can properly care for them. In order to support the care of their over 50 wolves, they offer educational tours where you can get close to the wolves, hear their stories and learn about these amazing animals. 

I first visited the sanctuary in college with my now ex-boyfriend. The tour was a small intimate affair of only a handful of people. This allowed us to linger near the wolves and really take them in. It’s hard to describe these majestic creatures in words. They are clearly very intelligent and inquisitive. They watch you with a certain intensity with eyes ranging in color from golden yellow to deep amber. The pack moves together with grace and purpose. You find yourself holding your breath as you take them in and then, the spell is broken and they remind you that they can be big, lovable goofs. 

My sister and I embarking on an early November excursion to see the wolves in their glory!

Your face cracks into a smile and then a delighted laugh at their antics as they play with one another. You watch them splay out their front paws, their faces low to the ground in the universal “play bow”, much like your own dog at home. They wrestle and chase one another with the elders nearby to supervise. 

The juxtaposition of their graceful, majestic selves and clown hints at their complex personalities and individuality. They become more than just a “wolf” they become Freya, Odin, Scandal, Kodie and Rumor. You fall in love with them as you hear their stories and you connect with them through the fence. Spending time with them is truly an honor and you leave even more committed to their preservation because it’s not just about fighting to save the “wolves” but wolves like Violet, Fenrir and Vivian Laurel of the Serenity Pack. They are truly ambassadors of their species. 

I had the pleasure of visiting again years later with my sister during one of their full moon fundraisers. What I hadn’t expected was the sheer explosion of popularity in the interim of my first full moon tour and my much more recent tour. What had been a small affair of perhaps a dozen people had exploded to be hundreds. The place was absolutely packed with people and cars. I was understandably a little disappointed by the large crowd. When one is expecting a quiet evening, it can be a bit shocking. 

However, it is important to adjust one’s expectations when confronted with reality and not allow such things to ruin your fun. There are times when the unexpected can truly make an experience extraordinary. This was not the case this time, but we got to see the wolves at a time of day when they are most active. In being mindful to be flexible and maneuverable with regards to our expectations, we were still able to have a wonderful evening. 

Some of them came really close to visit us, you could almost forget they’re wild animals

How can you visit wolves?

There are not many dedicated wolf only sanctuaries throughout the country, but there are plenty of zoos and other wildlife encounters that feature them. The biggest drawback to this option will of course be the lack of dedicated guides for the wolves that you see and of course seeing fewer of them. However, you can still get up close to these beautiful animals and learn about their species. Check the calendar to see if there are any dedicated programs for wolves specifically at your local zoo or other wildlife encounters. As with any activity involving animals, it is important to do research into the entity beforehand to ensure you aren’t unintentionally contributing to animal abuse. The Wolf Sanctuary is a well respected institution and known for its extraordinary care of the wolves.  

Completed: 2007

Miles from home: 8.2

Cost: Guided tour $25/Private tour $45 

Some suggestions for Wolf Sanctuaries throughout the United States: 

Apex Protection Project in California

Wolf Mountain Sanctuary California

Seacrest Wolf Preserve Florida

Wolf Creek Habitat Indiana

Predators of the Heart Washington

Howling Acres Wolf Spirit Arkansas

W.O.L.F. Sanctuary Colorado

Run With Wolves Maine

Endangered Wolf Center Missouri

Howling Woods Farm New Jersey

My Pack of Wolves Ohio 

Saint Frances Wolf Sanctuary Texas

Stay Local: Buy Local

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There is a movement of staying local and buying local. The idea is based on a simple economic principle that if you want to have a strong local community you need to keep your money in that community. If I go and buy a hand thrown piece of pottery from the local gallery and pay $30 bucks for it, that is $5 dollars to the owner of the gallery and $25 to a local artist. That they can then take to the local grocery story and if they buy locally grown produce that’s $30 to a local farmer who can then go and buy their goods at the gallery or perhaps purchase a service I’m offering. Not to mention that each time that money is spent, there is a small tax paid to the local and state government. Taxes which are spent on public goods that you use everyday. When money stays local it benefits the whole community which benefits you. 

Now if I go onto etsy and order the same mug for $30, well first less money to the artist because $5 for the shipping and handling, plus the cost of the box and shipping materials, then etsy gets its cut and so we’ll say $20 goes to the artist. Well now that $20 is in his community and he’s paying his local farmers for their local produce, etc. So you’ve benefited their community and not yours. So if given the choice between spending $30 for a locally produced item or $30 on an item not from here, I’m going to choose my local producer. 

The same can be said of travel. There is a reason why so much is invested in tourism. Tourism is a huge industry that attracts tons of outside money into your local community. States spend thousands on advertising to people not living nearby to come to where you live.? I remember the story my 8th grade history teacher told of some tourists that had come to my area. He asked them semi-perplexed “why would you come here?” They said their choice for their family was between Amish Country and Disney World. Amish Country won out. My whole class was flabbergasted, who one earth would want to come here of all places? The answer is a lot of people. No matter where you live, there are people who are paying lots of money to go there or at least to a place nearby. They are bringing a lot of money into your local area and not putting it into their local economy. 

Which begs the question if people are  paying lots of money to come to your area and are supporting local businesses while doing it, shouldn’t you check it out too? After all, they’re paying a lot of money to come there, maybe your town isn’t as boring as you think. Shouldn’t you consider keeping your money in the local community? I’ve already outlined why keeping your money in your local area is so important. Your own leaders wouldn’t spend so much money trying to get more money into the economy if it wasn’t important. 

One other thing to consider is that by encouraging locals to enjoy these venues and events it keeps a certain amount of leverage with the tourism industry. I’ve written about overtourism. Often calls to curb tourism by locals fall upon deaf ears as the response by politicians is typically something about the local community being reliant upon these tourists. However, if the local population are the ones going to these areas then they can say “actually, we’re huge supporters so we don’t need these tourists”.  

This is just one of the many reasons I choose to travel less. I am keeping my community strong all while living richly. It turns out being a budget bucket lister is good for my wallet and my neighbor’s. 

Things that should not be on your list

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I should hope that in your explorations of my various posts that it is fairly clear that I wholeheartedly and enthusiastically encourage you to add things that are authentic to you to your list with almost no limitations. If for you a bucket list item is finally baking the perfect cake, then by all means put it on your list. If saving up money to follow your favorite band across the country on tour – go for it!

However, there are some things that I strongly discourage and believe should not grace anyone’s bucket list. Namely items that are harmful or exploitative. Now, I won’t get down too deeply into the various nuances of exploitation and how almost everything we do is exploiting someone in someway, so there may be times when it seems like we’re splitting hairs. However, there are some activities that are quite clearly harmful to engage in. 

Take the ever popular animal encounters. Many of them are quite fine and benefit both the animal and the people. But not every animal encounter is good, some are down right evil. Take baby tiger encounters, if someone is able to make a business entirely out of baby animal interactions you can almost be certain that the animals are being harmed. I would no sooner go to a puppy mill and pay them to interact with their puppies, but that is essentially what you would be doing. After all, animals don’t stay small and cute for long. Where are these babies coming from? How do they keep a continuous supply of baby animals? Where do they go when they grow up? Babies that are being constantly handled by humans are certainly not going back into the wild nor are they probably going to zoos.

It is important to consider if these animals are bred for human interaction, what sort of enclosure do they have, does the facility have any sort of accreditation such as the The Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) the gold standard for the industry, are there limits to group size, is it an animal led interaction and how likely is it that this is an animal that is being exploited? Some animals are much more likely to be part of a larger system of exploitation such as elephants. As much as I would love to interact with an elephant, unless it’s an encounter at a zoo or other facility with a fairly stringent accreditation, I won’t be participating in it. There are many stories coming out of Asia where even at places “meant” to help the elephants are actually places where they are being exploited and harmed.

Dolphin Encounter

When I was in Bermuda and I had the opportunity to do a dolphin encounter. Before even signing up for it, I started to do research into whether this was an ethical thing for me to do as I had read that many dolphin encounters in the Caribbean were harmful to the dolphins. I was pleased to see they had several accreditations and even reached out to one of my friends who worked at a zoo to see what she thought. She affirmed in her own investigation the organization seemed above board. With the best of intentions, I signed up for the encounter. 

My caution was rewarded because when I went they kept the groups of visitors small and it was a dolphin led encounter. This meant that they opened the doors whichever dolphin showed up was the dolphin we would work with. The dolphins got to decide on the limits for themselves and make the decision to come or go. Honestly even the “enclosure” they were in, was really a net in the open water. The entire pod could have left at any time with a simple jump out to freedom. It was as effective at keeping them in as a one foot fence might be at keeping your dog in your yard. I am quite happy to recommend the encounter to people as positive for both people and dolphins. I did my research and had an amazing experience. I also don’t have to live with the guilt and even shame of having done something to harm these beautiful creatures that I adore because I took time to reflect first. The same could not have been said had I given into temptation and gone to cuddle the baby tigers. 

Another common area for harm is the environment though this one is a bit fuzzy. Still, I encourage you to do your research and see if what you’re about to embark on is going to be drastically harmful. Releasing items up into the sky is a decided red flag as what goes up must come down. Balloons kill thousands of animals every year because of balloon releases. Would you really kill an animal for a few hours of fun? (We’ll table the hunting debate for now, I’m not referencing hunting.) When I decided to engage in a lantern fest, part of what I was paying for in my ticket price was for the clean up after the event. The lantern was 90% biodegradable and they had a significant rate of lantern recovery of between 85 – 95%. They had an agreement with the local land management that if lanterns were recovered after the event they would donate a certain amount of money to conservation of the land per lantern recovered. It meant that I was confident in my engagement with the activity as something that was minimally harmful to the local environment. Once again, it’s about doing your research and figuring out where you draw the line. For some people, releasing anything into the air is too harmful and risky to be worth it. For some people, my choice to go on a cruise is too much. 

Lantern Fest

This post should not be read as some sort of permission to name and shame. It’s to make you really consider the potential consequences of your actions and to be willing to re-assess past decisions in light of new information. Take the ever popular, simple and seemingly harmless practice of rock stacking. Stacking rocks has been made so popular by social media, the national park service has started to ask people to knock them down as the practice is becoming increasingly harmful to the environment. It turns out, the small animals that need those rocks are the bedrock of the entire ecosystem and we were destroying them with our little instagram pictures. Apparently, If we want the wolves to stick around, we need to leave those rocks be. Things we would never think of as harmful can be devastating. 

Unfortunately, the exploitation of people is probably the most fuzzy area, even though it seems like it should be easiest. This is mostly because there is so much exploitation of people in the tourism industry it is almost impossible not to end up in its clutches. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, do your research. Cruises are notorious for their poor treatment of the crew. Certain cruise lines are the typical offenders whereas others have pretty good reputations. Some hotels hold people in semi-domestic slavery. Others may be hubs of sex trafficking. I won’t publish a list here because these things can change overtime with changes in management and leadership. I certainly don’t want people coming to me later saying that I said a certain line was okay only to find out five years later it’s now one of the worst offenders. 

Going on a mission or service trip may seem like the least exploitive thing you can do, but it can actually be one of the worst things you can do. There are stories of people going to orphanages to give toys that the children never see, or shoes the children will never get to wear. Essentially, saving the “poor orphans” is the thing the company is selling and if there aren’t “poor orphans” they lose their product. They can’t be saved if they’re already living in a beautiful facility provided with toys, food and clothing? 

Handing out food in Haiti

If you go to build houses, you can be assured that there was a group of local professionals who had to come in after you to fix all your mistakes just so you could feel good about what you were doing. There are other tales of churches being painted multiple times in the same summer by various youth groups robbing the locals of a job and money. These weren’t service trips, these were tourism experiences disguised as service. This isn’t to say every mission trip was like that and that by going you are robbing locals of business and self-sufficiency. However, it’s a good idea to question what you’re being asked to do. Are you doing something that is within your expertise or skillset or something you’d call a professional to do? If it’s a company that is consistently sending people to the same place, then why is it in such dire straits all the time? 

Finally, things that go against your ethics and morals should never be on your list. Do your research and use your brain to ask the questions. As you learn more, the questions will begin to seem more and more obvious to ask. Additionally, if you engage in something and then later discover that you did participate in something that goes against your morals and ethics, it may be best to simply leave it off the “list”. This isn’t to hide it or out of a sense of shame. It is so the inclusion of it doesn’t encourage others to do it. For example, I did ride an elephant as a child long before the internet was widely available and the concerns for the elephants had reached my parents. All I knew was that I loved elephants and I got to ride one. However, you won’t see it on my list and other than this brief aside, I don’t think I will publish it elsewhere. This is to discourage elephant rides as I’m not celebrating it as a bucket list item that I have done. When we leave those sorts of things on our list, it is a celebration of that experience and it isn’t an experience worthy of celebration. 

Not everyone’s morals and ethics will align. I already mentioned hunting, lantern releases and cruises. Some people may find consumption of any animal or animal product to be abhorrent. There are activist throwing soup at art because they feel the environmental impact of the museums is too much and so seeing the Mona Lisa probably isn’t something they’d have on their list. For me, cuddling a baby tiger isn’t something I’ll probably ever do because I cannot think of an ethical way to do it. This is a personal decision that you have to make and live with, but I will encourage you to continue to learn about the ethical practices of a given activity. One more reason for staying closer to home, it’s a bit easier for you to find out what’s actually going on. 

See a Live Play: Shakespeare in the Park

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Perhaps, I owe many of these adventures to my mother because while she did not teach me these principles directly she set the example. Growing up, we didn’t have a lot of money. I wore my sister’s clothing once she grew out of it, shopped at thrift stores and grocery outlets, ate leftovers, and used the library as a primary source of entertainment. We rarely went on trips longer than a day, but my mother worked hard to ensure my childhood was still enriched. She scoured the newspapers and kept her ear to the ground for low cost or free events. It was at a time when the internet didn’t really exist and being on the lower end of the economic scale, we were late adopters of most technology. I remember going to things like a bank opening and riding a pony, visiting museums when it was free admission for kids and going to concerts at our church or library. One of these events was the annual Shakespeare in the park play and it remains to this day one of my favorite childhood memories. 

Every summer, we’d pack up a picnic dinner, chairs, blankets and head to the park. We’d stake our place among the quickly growing crowd. After eating sandwiches and drinking the rare soda, my brother, sister and I were allowed to go play on the playground with the other children until the play began. We would let our imagination run wild on the playground imagining dragons or fairies around every corner. We would make quick friends of the other children that were there to join in our games even though the friendship lasted less than an hour. Despite our fun, our parents never had to entice us away from the playground because we were so eager to watch the real magic begin. There was nothing so enchanting as a play by the bard himself.

Lake at Longs Park

The plays were put on by the Theater of the Seventh Sister, named after the seventh star of the pleiades constellation. It was a group that put on performances from the late 80’s through late 2010’s. These were by no means broadway spectacles but it didn’t matter with the generous support of the community, these phenomenal actors and actresses brought Shakespeare’s comedies to life each year as part of a larger arts in the park summer series. I remember sitting on a blanket at just eight years old completely spellbound as they spoke in the poetry of the plays, absorbing the rhythm of iambic pentameter. The heat of the summer melted away and I was transported to another place and time. The experience solidified both my adoration of Shakespeare and my love of live theater. 

I will not hold up theater over film or television as some sort of superior artform nor will I say that the opposite is true. Both have their place, but film and television is far more common and unfortunately far more accessible. Many people have not had the opportunity or privilege of watching a live performance. It is very different to see a story spring forth with moving sets and props. The way they speak to communicate emotions is not the same way as in a film, their movements and expressions are more exaggerated. 

The Globe by Richard Croft is licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.0

It is fun to see how the same words can be reinterpreted by an actor, with different emphases or cadences. Where one might let their voice break of heartbreak, another may get more forceful with anger, both valid interpretations. I often find myself responding more on an emotional level to a live performance than to a recorded one on a screen. Perhaps because there is a more direct connection with a live person, when one could reach out and touch them, it feels somehow more real even if the sets are clearly more fake. That is the strange paradox of a live performance, when so much is stripped away by the very nature of a play, what is left can seem more real than a movie filmed with a full set. I do not remember all the films I have seen. I do not usually have strong emotional reactions to movies. I certainly don’t remember most of the episodes of the hundreds of shows I’ve consumed, but I do remember the plays. I remember how they made me feel. I remember how the actors moved, the inflection in their voices. I remember magic. To this day, A Midsummer’s Night Dream, The Tempest, A Comedy of Heirs and The Taming of the Shrew remain etched in my mind. I can still hear the echoing voices projected from the amphitheater. 

How you can complete this item: 

If you have not seen a live play, I do recommend you go to one. It doesn’t have to be Shakespeare. While he is considered by many to be one of the greatest playwrights that ever lived, he is not for everyone, much in the same way not everyone enjoys Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musicals or think Taylor Swift is the greatest song writer that ever graced the stage (I would be one of those people). Find what would interest you, there are plenty of plays to interest anyone. Be like my mother, scour the newspapers (or facebook events page) to see what live shows may be in your area. Many cities support the arts and try to help the public access them by putting on shows in places like parks or larger theaters. Pack a picnic, let the kids play on the playground until the show begins and then lean back in your chair and lose yourself for an hour or two in something truly phenomenal. 

Completed: Childhood

Miles from home: 12

Cost: Free

Combating Over-tourism: Stay Home

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There is a growing problem in the world that has exploded post pandemic: overtourism. It was a problem prior to the pandemic, but it has increased exponentially after several years of people being cooped up and prevented from traveling with little signs of stopping. This has resulted in iconic places being overrun by tourists turning once beloved authentic experiences into Disney World attractions with about as much spirit and an equal amount of crowds. 

How can one even enjoy these places with the crowds and the jostling for position? How can you say that you were actually in a place if all you did was stand in line, snap a picture of yourself there and move on to the next “iconic” spot in the area? At least at Disney World the line culminates in a 60 second ride rather than a 10 second picture, as you will feel equally soulless afterward. To be fair, the enjoyment you will get from that experience will most likely be from the many likes and shares that you get; an equally fleeting reward as a ride but less honest, at least the ride isn’t pretending to be something it isn’t. 

The crowd at the fountain was shockingly huge even late at night. As you can see, there was no way to get a shot without people in the background.

The local population suffers for our own over indulgence. Short term rentals push residents out of their homes and local food markets cater to tourists looking for a grab and go snack rather than produce for a home cooked meal. Local festivals, once a point of pride for residents, become activities they no longer recognize nor enjoy as their voices and concerns are drowned out by the ring of outside cash. 

Worse, in participating in this overtourism, you are contributing to the ruination of the very thing you espouse desiring to preserve. We travel for the cultural experience to interact with people and places that are different from us to enrich our lives and to support the existence of that precious human expression in an increasingly homogeneous, industrialized and globalized world. It would be better to watch a documentary and never step foot in Venice than to contribute to its ever increasing decline. Given the declining likelihood of encountering locals its not like you’ll be missing out on interacting directly with the local populace. 

By staying closer to home, I am ensuring that I am not contributing to the problem of over-tourism elsewhere. It also means that I can enjoy similar bucket list experiences, but with less crowds. I do live in a tourist area and we are seeing an increase of tourism and in some cases, over-tourism. Luckily, most of the tourists are focused on Amish and farm experiences, leaving the things I want to do alone. Sometimes going to a specific place that is known for a certain thing is the worst thing you can do for your bucket list experience because of over-tourism. You will be dealing with crowds and shortened snippets of the very thing you came to do. 

When I was in the Cayman Islands we went to the turtle center where we had the opportunity to wade with the turtles after the tour and before being set free to explore the center on our own. Because it was a tour group of about forty people we were only given a few minutes to wade with the turtles and interact with them. This resulted in people trying to frantically take pictures in the short time they were given and of course the shots were full of people. It meant we weren’t actually focused on the activity that we were there to do, interact with and enjoy the turtles. I went back to the wading pools about 40 minutes later in between tour groups when there was almost no one present. I was able to get into a pool with the turtles by myself, my sister snapped a few pictures of me in the pool while I was able to completely focus on the turtles. I barely remember the first time I went in because the clock was ticking and there were too many people jostling and getting in the way. Yes, we all got a turn and it was in the interest of allowing everyone the opportunity to enjoy these beautiful creatures. However, it wasn’t the experience I dreamed about having when I first booked my tour. It was only when I was able to get away from the crowd and be mindful about what I was doing that I was able to have the moment I wanted.

Once the crowd cleared, I was able to spend an intimate moment with the turtles

I also tell people to skip the Mona Lisa, as it is so small, protected behind thick glass in a dimly lit area, surrounded by a throng of people all vying for a picture held back by a rope, you may as well look at it online for all the good seeing it in person will do you. Besides, it’s only special because some nutter waxed poetic about it in some book before pictures in art books were more common and then it was stolen for a bit causing a sensation around the whole thing when it was finally returned. The nonsense surrounding it never really died down. Go look at DaVinci’s lesser known works if you are so inclined to see a Da Vinci in person, and if you don’t know much about his technique and art in general enough to appreciate it, then by all means don’t bother with him at all and spend your time looking at art you actually like! There are plenty of other artists from that age who were talented and innovative. There are some artists who may arguably be better – art enthusiasts please don’t die of shock reading this. And if it’s not your thing, certainly don’t waste precious time on any of the Italian Renaissance painters, there’s a great wide world of art out there just waiting to be discovered! Perhaps later after you’ve developed a great appreciation you may wish to return to Da Vinci, but then it will be something you actually want to do. Although, no matter how much I learn about sports that I do enjoy (archery, horseback riding, falconry), I have yet to develop an interest in the more common ones (soccer, football, baseball), art may be the same for you. And, that’s okay! It isn’t an indictment on your character, intelligence or worth as a person! Some people have a more narrow interest in certain areas. 

The point being if you go to a place that is overrun with tourists you won’t be able to enjoy the very thing you set out to enjoy in the first place and you are far better not bothering with all the packing, planning, flying, walking and standing about in a line. You may as well find something similar closer to home that you can actually enjoy. Not that you can’t learn to be mindful in a crowd of people and enjoy something despite all the barriers but it’s going to be damned hard when you’re given all of 30 seconds to snap a picture and ogle the view. 

Don’t let the picture full you, I didn’t hop on a plane to visit this Japanese Garden, I drove less than two hours!

You may actually be quite surprised at the things that are nearby that you thought you had to cross oceans to find. Living in Pennsylvania I discovered that I could attend a tea ceremony demonstration in the Japanese Gardens just outside of Philadelphia. It is home to a lovingly built Japanese house built exactly as you might find in Japan. There, a small group of Japanese-Americans are willing to share their culture and traditions with visitors. I was able to see some of my top things without any jet lag or expensive plane tickets. I have seen a performance by the Moscow Ballet Company when they graced the stage at Hershey Theater. I have released lanterns to the sky as they might in Asia. I have seen King Tut’s treasures when they were on display in Philadelphia and the treasures of the Russian Tsars. I recently discovered there’s a place in Northern PA that has dog sledding!

Some of those things were chance items that were here for a brief time before moving on and I was able to take the opportunity to see them. However, I was on the lookout for such opportunities because I was being a tourist in my own backyard instead of ever dreaming of places elsewhere. You never know what you might find if you stop looking up at the sky, daydreaming and started looking at what’s happening on the ground where you’re at.

Living Life to the Fullest Where You Are

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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.

Archery Demonstration at Japanese Culture Festival in Washington D.C.

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.