Travel Inspiration

What inspires you to travel?

For me, the idea to go visit a place can be inspired by any number of things. A television program, a picture, hell, even just the idea I have in my head of a place can make me want to pick up my backpack and hop on a plane. Of course, reality always sets in and I think about paying for the trip and getting time off from work. What if I didn’t have to think about those things? What if I could just pick up and leave? Where would I go?

Where would you go?

Time Machine by Shutr on Flickr

Time Machine by Shutr on Flickr

Traveling is more than just going to visit a place. Why would we go otherwise? We don’t go to the Carribbean just to sit on a beach. We go to clear our minds, wipe away distractions, focus and center ourselves. We go to promote health, mental and physical, and we go to have fun, whatever that may be for each of us. Even the classic road trip is a chance for us to concentrate on only a very few things, but to focus deeply on those things. A long time in an enclosed space with one or two other people is a great opportunity to talk about things, whether out loud with your friends or inside your own head.

My friend Angela recently returned from a month in Rome, having gone there with the expectation that she would find inspiration and a direct path to take in her career and life. As I read her blog, I noticed that things were not going as she’d planed. Now that she’s back in the U.S., she’s come to realize that she went into that trip with too many expectations, and that she’s just as confused and unfocused as when she left. She does, however, know what that she doesn’t want to live in Italy; at least, not in Rome. Travel like that can tell you what you don’t want just as much as it can tell you what you do want.

So we know what travel can do while you’re doing it, but my original point was that there is a moment in time when you decide that you want to go somewhere, for whatever reason, and you pick up the phone or jump on the computer to research your options. Why? What inspires you to do that? I have three or four big trips I want to do in the next year, along with several smaller ones. I have this huge pull to do all of them, no matter what stands in my way. One of the biggest is a trip to Ireland. I have no plan other than to go, no itinerary once I get there.

I just want to be there. And what has inspired me to go? Any number of things, including pictures, video, an ex-girlfriend, and “just a feeling.” Yep, completely vague, and I’m ok with that.

So what is your travel inspiration? Where do you want to go?

Chris Cavallari

About Chris Cavallari

Chris is a longtime digital content producer based in Maine. Since 1999, he has been an early adopter and active participant in blogging, podcasting, and social media, and has been guiding small and mid-sized businesses in leveraging video, social media, and digital publishing to the fullest. With an avid love of travel and the outdoors, Chris started PartTimeVagabond.com in 2009 to give him a platform to showcase his outdoors and travel adventures, and to help educate others in doing the same.