I have been a member of Travelpunk for many years now.  Yet, I have never left my country (the U.S., except for Canada).  I love to travel, I have a passion to go backpacking, when I read another travelers blogs, it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and I feel the urge to pack up right then and hitch a ride to airport and head off to anywhere but here.  So why haven’t I?

The question could be seen in many ways I suppose.  I had a trip planned out at one time.  It was going to be a huge trip, over a year.  My reasoning was that it cost too much to fly across an ocean just for a few weeks.  I wanted to do it all.  Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, Russia, Romania, even Egypt, Israel, India, UAE, Thailand, etc if I could.  Oh yes, it was a massive trip.  But I never got the money together.  I ended up being laid off, which is normally a perfect time, but without money, not much you can do.  I plan big, and often times the goals are too large and I forget the baby steps.

I had also wrapped myself up in jobs, owning my own business, and other life activities that could easily detract someone from such plans as exploring the world.  But when all those fell apart, I did the one thing that is the closest to me ever backpacking; I up and moved across the country to Las Vegas, NV.  No plans, but I had a job.  It was really kind of amazing.  I’ve been to Las Vegas before so it wasn’t quite like landing in Rome for the first time ever, but it was kind of surreal knowing that I was here for an indeterminate amount of time.  Here it is, nearly 7 months later and I have my plans to return home.

Some think I am throwing in the towel, giving up, but it’s not that way.  I came to Las Vegas to get away from Michigan for a while, to explore the world, get a new perspective.  I am returning new, revitalized, and strangely I feel much younger.  So I have a new outlook on things like traveling again.  But this time, I plan on taking it slow.  As if it hasn’t been so slow already.  I want to do little trips in the U.S. to places I haven’t been, bounce around a few days here and there.  Perhaps even Greyhound trip across a good part of the country.  Save up a little and finally launch off to the great unknown.  

I don’t see it as failure, you can make plans that are poorly designed, but as long as you see it, and go back, and rewrite them to better fit your situation, it’s not failure.  I am strangley conflicted with many things.  I can be a loner and leave everything behind, but I also have that strong grasp to remain close to those I know. 

But to those people out there that dream of the big trip, but haven’t yet taken the plunge for whatever reason.  You just need to sit down and figure out what it is you can manage to do.  Even if it’s just a short trip to another state.  Explore something you haven’t seen, it will motivate you to get to the next step.  Someday still we will cross paths in Bangkok or Paris.  To the travelers of Travelpunk, you are the inspiration.  I was reading Jakes post about getting an apartment in Brazil, and I felt strangely jealous.  Perhaps someday I will too.