Ready, Set, Travel!

There’s an old saying in real estate. Location, location, location.

When you arrived at your current duty station, you and your spouse went house hunting to buy or rent and understood the importance of location. Location to schools, location to parks, and location to post.

But for those of us with wanderlust, it’s also about location, location, location. Either we are reminiscing about the locations we have visited or planning for the locations yet to come. My colleague Tiffany is one of those infected with the travel bug but recently discussed living in the time of COVID-19 as an American in Italy unable to travel, let alone leave her apartment.

It goes without saying, for myself as well as all those mentioned in this post, that leisure travel is insignificant to the lives lost and suffering that currently exists due to COVID-19. However, we must continue to pursue and explore passions that make life worth living for each of us. Please note this as you continue to read.

Like many employers, the United States Army has constantly changing needs and my wife’s career factors into those constantly changing needs. We have only had two assignments in my wife’s four years of service. A Lieutenant Colonel Judge Advocate General (JAG) she works under has had 10 duty stations in 14 years, including two moves outside the United States in the past three years. You may think 10 moves in 14 years might leave you yearning for some time at home, but to the contrary, his spouse is watching COVID-19 drain away the hourglass of available travel time while still living in Germany.

Military and civilian families alike have been spending more time at home during the COVID-19 pandemic than usual. With all these things in mind, here are a few suggestions for those travelers who can’t shake their wanderlust while currently sheltered at home.

Step 1: Plan a Trip

My 11 year old son Hunter was fascinated as a younger child when I told him about the annual bike ride across Nebraska. He seized on the idea and for the past several years has dreamed of bicycling across America. Rather than dreaming I want my son to make it a goal he can actualize. I challenged my son to create a detailed itinerary of our cross-country bicycle trip—starting city, ending city, stops in between, and highlights to visit. He has stored it in his Google Drive for a future trip.

Not only is my 11 year old learning the skill of planning, but we as a family will have a ready-to-go travel plan when the opportunity presents itself. Take the time right now while thing are slow to plan either your dream trip or a three day getaway for the next long weekend.

STEP 2: Give Purpose to Your Travel

My children and I discovered Ranger Doug window stickers while camping in Death Valley National Park.

In August.

After purchasing the first one in a National Park gift store, I became obsessed and ordered the entire set from Ranger Doug and my children and I now have a goal.

To visit every national park.

The stickers are great but aren’t the true reward. The true reward is seeing the incredible natural beauty our country has to offer and the experience of hiking and camping in those protected spaces. And with a no fee annual pass for active-duty military as well as their spouses, there is no excuse not to visit a national park.

Our progress is clear by the number of stickers on the back of our van. Side note: I was never a car sticker person until children. It started simply enough with an OBX lobster euro and now the back of my vehicle looks like the picture above.

While stationed in Germany, we have put the National Parks on hold while we go after all 27 countries in the European Union (EU). Prior to COVID-19, my children were up to six EU nations after only eight months of living here, with plans to visit six more by June. Those plans have either been canceled or most likely will be canceled. However, now is the perfect time to go back to Step 1 above and plan how we will visit all 27 EU member counties.

Step 3: Celebrate Past Trips!

As a child of the 1970s, I remember going to Mr. and Mrs. Snow’s house in our neighborhood to watch slides of their most recent trip. It was exactly like you see in the movies. Mr. Snow would drop a circular tray of slides into the projector, the lights would dim, the slides would advance one at a time with the sound of each slide falling in front of the light beam, and the images projected on to the wall.

But, think about this.

Technology is progressing at a rate that causes our lives to seemingly fly by at an ever-increasing rate. We are always plugged in. Ironically, as more of us experience travel and have the ability to photograph and record those travels, we are leaving less and less time to remember and celebrate those travels.

When is the last time you paused and spent a night reminiscing with photographs from trips past? I have more than 18,000 photos in my Flickr account, and none of those are from the past four years! Aside from using Google Chrome to transmit these photos from my photo library to the television screen, I give no thought to pausing and reflecting on the memories those 18,000 photographs represent.

So while we all have time during shelter-in-place, pick one night a week to revisit old trips. Put a different child in charge each week to go through old trip photos and select the 33 best to present to the family.

For those of us who can never travel enough, this is a great time to prepare for those future trips as well as pause and celebrate past adventures.