Just Wander

“Walk until you can no longer then crawl” I am sure that is what my travel mantra would be if I had one. When I travel somewhere new I want to see all the things and it took several trips to realize that is just not possible. Slowly I had a huge shift in my approach to travel I went from what I will call a work approach: waking up early, breakfast and out the door at 8 am, a long day of seeing all the things, return to the hotel late, shower and fall into bed exhausted. The next day I repeated the process just in a different location of the city. While this approach maximized the things I could see while I was there I found out the end of the trip everything had blurred into one. It took a few trips before I shifted my travel style from “see all the things - remember only a few” to creating a different type of travel itinerary a more relaxed style. I shifted my focus from I may never be able to do this again so I need to do it all - to - appreciating the fact that I was able to do it and should slow down and soak in this opportunity (in other words I went from 100 miles an hr to 60-65 miles an hr).

Now when I travel I enjoy a little slower morning. I still get up early(ish) around 7:30 or so shower, get ready, and have a leisurely breakfast. After breakfast I pull open my itinerary and set about my day. Allowing for a leisurely lunch and dinner. If I am traveling solo, during dinner, I look back over my day taking the time to note my favorite experiences from that day’s adventure. If I am traveling with someone we do top three favorite things we did or saw that day. This time to pause and visit to pick our favorites allows us the opportunity to revisit the day and in turn help firm up the memories (cause lets face this old gray mare aint what she used to be). I also try and intentionally incorporate a lesson I learned by accident on my trip to Istanbul - leave a day free just to wander or revisit a place that spoke to you. On our accidental free day we went visited one of the oldest Hammams, went back and just sat for an hour in the Blue Mosque, and found, by luck, Suleymaniye neighborhood.