Travel is a Necessity?

Travel is a Necessity? Yes it is!  So very much so!  Travel is a Necessity for so many reasons!

I grew up in a very small town.  It was the quintessential small town with a flashing light at two of the “main” intersections in the town and once you started school, you went to the same building from K – 12.   No one ever locked their doors or car doors.  Rarely did any crime happen there and we could walk to school without supervision.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved living there and I lived there for the first 20 years of my life  My parents lives when we were growing up evolved around their jobs, taking care of us and taking care of our home.

For my family, family vacation travel consisted of taking an 8 hr car ride, one way, to visit my Dad’s family several times throughout the year.  As a kid I loved going  there to visit.  A lot of my cousins lived in the same area too so for my brother and I, it was a long weekend/week of playing with cousins and doing lots of sleepovers.

For my parents, they felt that going to visit family was all our family vacations needed to be.  We never went to Disney, Niagara Falls, the beach or amusement parks.  My Dad was very pro family so every vacation consisted of spending time with extended family.

As I grew older, I would hear stories from my friends and classmates on all of their travel adventures.  I would try and imagine the scenes they would describe.  I wished my family could travel like that but I knew that would never happen.  My family vacations truly revolved around extended family

When I was in 8th grade, I got my first taste of real travel and I knew then that TRAVEL IS A NECESSITY in life!  Through our school, we had the opportunity to travel for a long weekend to Washington D.C.. The cost was a considerable amount but my parents knew that would probably be the only way I would ever get to go there so they came up with the money for me to go.

That tour bus ride was the first time I had ever been to anywhere except for the state I grew up in and the state my extended family lived in.  As I looked out of the window at all of the open space, hills, and trees and that’s when it became clear that there was a big world out there just waiting to be explored and I decided then and there that I didn’t want to just confine myself to just visiting family on vacations.  I wanted to see all that I could in my lifetime.

Fast forward several years to when my husband and I started dating. His family was the total opposite of mine.  They traveled everywhere!  They had been to the Grand Canyon, Florida, Disney, Niagara Falls, Canada, Rocky Mountains, and Texas.  As my husband, then boyfriend, would share their travels I knew in my heart and mind that that is what I wanted to do too.

Now as we are closing in on 25 years of marriage, I have been reflecting back on all of the places we have been.  I can now say I’ve even been west of the Mississippi River!  I took my first plane trip at 33 years old and that was on an international flight to China! I would highly recommend that that the first plane ride you take NOT be an international one!  Start off small!

I’m very thankful that my husband shares the passion I do for traveling and exposing our children to various sites and adventures.  We still go and visit my Dad’s family, however, due to everyone’s schedules I don’t go as often as I would like to.

I tell our children that travel is a necessity in life!  You don’t always have to go to the hot spots just because everyone else does.  Explore smaller towns.  Explore different restaurants.  There is a whole world waiting out there to be discovered!

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”