Can You Be Travel Happy?

You want to travel. You wistfully listen to stories from that woman at work who is always going on cruises, but you think you could never go. And then there’s your sister-in-law begging you go with her on a girls’ weekend to the lake, but all you can think about is the hassle involved in making the arrangements, getting your family squared away, and packing. Airport security, lost baggage, stomach viruses on cruise ships, they all make it easier to just stay home. The last time you went somewhere you were miserable. The room wasn’t right; the food was less than you expected, and it was one big chore. And that was just a trip to your mother-in-law’s house. You don’t have to see the world. You can see most of it on Discovery Channel anyway. You’ll expand your horizons right where you are, thank you very much. That’s what the Internet is for, right?

But what’s out there that you might miss? You can’t feel the crisp air blowing off a snow-capped mountain through your computer monitor or your 42” HDTV flat panel no matter how hard you try. And as good as the Discovery Channel is, they can’t bring you the smell of a tropical jungle or the sheer joy of a surprise encounter with a gray fox after dark in front of your lakeside cabin. Most of us must actually leave our comfortable homes to experience those things. We have to step outside our cozy little world in order to see the rest of it.


Why Travel Happy? There are lots of reasons why we go from one place to another. We visit relatives or try to learn new things. We travel to make more money or to get that next promotion. But wait, shouldn’t all of those things by their very nature make us happy? Yet traveling has the potential to make us miserable. And misery then feeds on itself. One person taking out their frustrations on an airline ticket agent makes the next three people in line miserable. And miserable travelers often drag their pain out for months. Someone writing a bad online review of a hotel the week after they return home causes untold grief for the housekeeper who forgot to put an extra bath towel in the reviewer’s room, the manager who was on duty at the time, plus assorted other staff and/or managers who are left trying to overcome the effects of a bad review that in reality probably started with someone’s less than perfect experience with an airline ticket agent having a bad day after dealing with a frustrated customer. Travel misery spreads like a runny nose in a daycare in January. But you can blow your nose, wash your hands, put a smile on your face, and stop the epidemic. Be the happy traveler who breaks the chain.

If you travel, this site is for you.  Almost all of us travel. Even your annual trip to see Grandma for Thanksgiving counts as traveling. Of course, there are people unable to travel. My ninety-four year-old grandmother knew she had reached the end of her traveling days, physically at least. I visited her in in the nursing home before she passed away and discovered that her travel memories were some of the only life stories she could recall. She couldn’t remember exactly when she visited San Francisco, but she knew she had been there and that she had taken a boat to Alcatraz Island. She smiled as she remembered traveling to London and Las Vegas and to my mother’s house in East Texas. My grandmother is proof that travel doesn’t have to be miserable. It can instead bring you joy that lasts throughout your lifetime.


We can teach you to be a happy traveler, but our goal is for you to also be travel happy.  We want you to be passionate about your passage through life, giddy about going places, joyous about your journeys. I want to inspire you to wander. It’s really a catch twenty-two situation. If you are crazy about traveling you’ll be a happier traveler; if you are a happy traveler, you’re more likely to want to go places. Why do we care? What difference does it make to us if you won’t budge from your recliner?  We firmly believe that much of the ignorance in the world could be cured if more people ventured beyond the boundaries of their individual worlds. Seeing and experiencing other people and places conveys a level of understanding and wisdom that cannot be gained any other way. We want you to see for yourself what life looks like in another person's world.

The more you go, the more you will grow. There will always be excuses for not leaving home, the kids have a soccer tournament, there’s nobody to feed the cat, the car needs a tune up, you don’t have enough money, etc., etc. Just remember that each time you use one of those excuses, it becomes a little easier to never go. Think of your life as a metal gate hinge outside in the wind and rain. The hinge will eventually start to rust but as long as it continues to move it will remain useful. Let the rain stop you from passing through the gate often enough though, and rust will freeze the hinge in place.

 Don’t let your gate rust shut. You can go more. Find time on the kids’ activity calendar, get an automatic feeder for the cat, take a bus or train instead of the car, set aside a few weeks worth of the money you spend on soda and coffee. We have even been known to sleep in the car just to get away for a night. It might have been uncomfortable, but that just added to the experience. We'll probably be telling our grandchildren about car camping at Fort Davis forty years from now when they visit us in the nursing home, and I assure you it will be with smiles on our faces.