Driving.
Road trips.
Destination = Excitement.
Or does it?
I myself am usually excited to tell the kids, “Hey, we are taking a road trip to Dallas to go to Six Flags and Hurricane Harbor!” Then the monsters that they are yell and scream in excitement because we are headed to the big city and will attend a massive amusement park to eat interesting food, spend an absurd amount of money, stand inline for a few hours, and most likely sweat!
How about the week beach vacation? That is one of my favorite destinations as a family. You travel as fast as you can, rent a nice house, or stay at a great resort, and sit for as many days as possible. Get food brought to you, sleep in, lay in the sand and sun, and engage with everyone when you see fit. I can feel the sand between my toes now.
Both of these scenarios are great and we vacationed like this plenty of times, but have you ever wondered what you were missing on the way to these destinations?
I did not, not until I learned. I absolutely had a solid departure time for each road trip, drove 5 mph over the speed limit (or more), breathed a heavy, angry sigh when someone had to stop for a bodily function because we had to hurry to our destination. Get there, get checked in, get the tickets, eat, get to bed early, etc.. This was our usual vacation routine.
I am a planner to the max, especially on vacation. It wasn’t until Covid and leaving from my mother-in-law’s home in Minnesota that I found myself in the car with three of the kids with only the first destination in mind…Mt. Rushmore. But yet, I had to get us all back to Texas. This is when I found the joy of the journey and not the destination. It was on these roads I found all the treasures, the lessons, and the discoveries we could make.
The Covid 19 crisis made us slow down, even if we did not want to. It made us do things differently. It made us travel differently. I found that I wasn’t looking for destinations because they were all closed on the way home from Mt. Rushmore, but instead the road became our destination. I could not give my money or time to an amusement park even if I wanted too! We discovered a new concept of traveling and learning because Covid gave us the opportunity and now I am super thankful.
This kind of trip is different and even I have a hard time adjusting to enjoying the journey, relaxing, and learning as I traveled down the road. It was/is hard for the kids (and my husband) the first day of traveling. When they as, ”Where are we going and what are we going to do?” I say, “We are off to find our next adventure and to discover something new.” The end.
So how to wrap your mind around this new way of travel if you are a “destination” in mind kind of person:
- You are NOT in a hurry.
- You CAN stop on the side of the road and look at anything you want to!
- You DON’T have to eat fast food in a roadside stop, in a hurry!
- You will learn more than you ever imagined about things you didn’t even know existed on a highway you have driven one hundred times.
- You get to listen to the people in the car and be engaged with them for hours (On that note, you can THROW OUT technology if you choose, because all you need is the Drive and Discover manual I am providing you.
- If you are alone, you get to listen to whatever you want, stop, learn, and connect with everything around you.
- You do not have to encounter other people in masses, or even small groups, if you don’t want to. There won’t be lines at your stops, but possibly strange creatures staring at you.
- You get to SEE the area, the road, through a lens not fogged by a haze of anticipation of something greater coming at the end of then day.
- You will find that the amount of money you spend on a vacation has nothing to do with memories and hands-on educational experiences that last a lifetime.
- If you can wrap your mind around this new way to travel, you can have a trip of a lifetime.
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