Will We Ever Travel Again?
Will we ever roam the world as we once did? If we have learned anything over the last year it is that predicting the future is a fool’s game. You will be wrong. So with the future murky and unclear, nothing more than a trail disappearing into the mist, there is something to rely on.
There is the past
Stories and memories of past travel sustain me now as I quarantine along with the rest of the world. The photos from the year my husband Dave and I spent living and traveling in Europe bring back recollections and launch us both down memory lane.
I can almost taste the spaghetti carbonara that we ate in Rome at a tiny restaurant called Eggs. England was double-decker buses, oysters at Greenwich Market, and visits to Downton Abbey and Stonehenge. From Venice, I can still feel the day’s heat radiating off the rough stone walls of a narrow alley and hear the rhythmic slapping sound of waves against the foundation of a building. I can still see, in my mind’s eye, the Christmas lights along The Riva in Split, Croatia, and smell the faintly salty, fishy smell of the fish market as we walk by.
Our year-long dream trip began with just that—a dream. For years, in between our short trips overseas, Dave and I started talking about a different kind of trip, a long-term trip. Both of us loved the food, wine, and people of Italy, and we began talking/dreaming about someday living in Italy for an entire year. Inevitably reality intruded and we went back to our 9 to 5 jobs, and the busyness of family, laundry, and house maintenance.
But then change came sooner than either of us expected
In 2016, Dave became eligible for early retirement and was offered a buyout from his job. It was a hard decision to make. We could have kept working and building up our retirement funds. That might have been the wise thing to do.
But my scripted life had already lurched out of control in 2013 when I found out I had Type 1 diabetes. The good health I had taken for granted my whole life vanished, leaving me to learn how to manage a chronic condition. It was challenging, and life felt more precious and more fragile. I didn’t want to waste one second of whatever active time I had left. Early retirement would give us a chance to do the things the two of us had been dreaming about for years.
Like giddy kids, we bought two one-way tickets to Rome
Almost immediately, I felt overwhelmed. I had taken Italian language classes off and on for years, but I was not at all fluent. Can reading dozens of guidebooks and travel memoirs really prepare you for this? We would be far from friends and family for an entire year. Would we get homesick? A lot could go wrong.
What do you do with your mail for months at a time, and how do you refill your prescriptions in a foreign country? Our usual doctors and pharmacies would not be available. Complications from diabetes had landed me in the hospital emergency room twice. If that happened in Italy, it could be dangerous. There could be other sudden health emergencies, accidents, or illnesses.
What would it be like to live in a small space with Dave, completely alone together, 24/7? Our everyday lives began to look more and more warm, comfortable, and safe. It would be challenging to begin a new post-retirement life surrounded by strangers.
As we planned to leave everything behind, I realized how much I liked my habits, schedules, and routines. Spontaneous, powerless, messy situations usually made me nervous and uncomfortable. On this trip, I wouldn’t be able to control very much. We were upending our lives, by choice, and I couldn’t clearly see what would replace our norms. Would we even like this new life in a foreign country, or would we want to return home after a month?
When it came right down to it, our dream trip felt like falling off a cliff
So we held hands and walked over the cliff. And if I had it to do over again, I would walk off the cliff again.
The future of travel is unknown, the timeline of when things will return to “normal” is unknowable, but I believe, I INSIST on believing, that travel will return. We are in a “pause,” and someday, people will roam, wander, and navigate the world again. I don’t know when, I don’t know how, and I don’t know what it will look like—probably very different. But that is okay.
I am hopeful. Life goes on. The world will be new, and we will see it in new ways. All of us will brave the new world—one day.