It is no secret that I love to travel with my wife. There is great joy in seeing people, places and things. There is such an amazing world out there. I can speak from personal experience that some of my prejudices, misconceptions, and ignorance have melted away all because we have travelled.
Travel is also addictive.
One of the most fun activities for me is planning our next trip. If things go as planned, we will do a small frozen waterfall journey to the Buffalo/Niagara region of New York. It has been rather cold, and seeing the ice formations that water makes as it falls is nature at her finest.
Plus, there is Paula’s Donuts.
They have an apple fritter that must weigh a pound and a half. It is basically an apple pie wrapped in a donut. It is a must-stop whenever we can.
While researching this possible trip, I checked out what is in the area, so if we change our mind and find that we want to do something else, I already have a basic idea of what to do. I stumbled upon Buffalo AKG Art Museum during my research. This is a museum that I have been wanting to go to but has been under renovation ever since we started travelling into the United States. I have had it on my priority list since we have been in Buffalo, but I also want to avoid paying the price of admission (it is relatively high).
Before Christmas, we travelled to Detroit. I purchased a membership with the Detroit Institute of Arts, which includes a reciprocal membership to over a thousand other museums, many of which are within a reasonable drive for us. I began looking at a map of all the museums included and noticed that the map was incomplete. To my wonderful surprise, Buffalo AKG Art Museum is one of the free admission places we can see now. I worked on the map of the North American Reciprocal Museum Association (NARM) and The Reciprocal Organization of Associated Museums (ROAM). As I worked on this map of all the places we could travel to because of our DIA membership, I wanted to pack my bag and go.
The urge to travel is great.
Hundreds of locations on this map are all within driving distance, and I want to go.
UGH!
Many months ago, on a weekend trip with Charlene, we picked up brochures of potential places to visit. Most of the research I do is through Google Maps, but there are other sources of possible locations. Brochures offer insight into areas that might not appear on any map.
Charlene was sitting on the bed in the hotel we were staying at that night when she threw the brochures to the side. It was in dramatic fashion that it grabbed my attention. She stated that she hates looking at brochures because now she wants to go there.
I never understood her reasoning until now.
I find great pleasure in finding places to explore, and then mapping and creating itineraries is incredibly fun. Then there is the moment we get to go, and it comes together beautifully; it is a highlight of our lives, knowing we are sharing this experience as a couple.
But as I was working on the NARM and ROAM Map, I finally appreciated why Charlene threw the brochures to the side. I saw hundreds of places in hundreds of communities, with thousands of other destinations all within a weekend, a long weekend, an extended long weekend and even a week’s drive from our home. I felt the fear of missing out for the first time.
It is entirely possible to visit every destination that I would love to see, but there is this annoying fact that travel isn’t free. Annoying things like gas, food, car maintenance, cell phone bills, every other bill, and needing a job to pay for these things. Plus, work takes so much time that how on earth are we going to fit all these places into the only free time we get?
I felt anxiety.
FOMO is real.
Now I have to pick and choose.
What places are priorities, and what places can be missed? When can we go and see these places? How will we travel from place to place, maximizing our experience and seeing as many of these places as possible? And the big question…
When?
Why can’t we always be on vacation?
