It's Not Vacation, It's Travel

I so often get questions and comments that go like this:

How can you guys take such long vacations all the time?

This is shows how locked in we are to the work-a-day mentality. Because when one is working all the time, the only time one travels (unless you travel for work and that's something else entirely) is when you are taking a vacation. By definition, one's vacation is a relatively limited amount of time when you are allowed to get away from your work realities and recharge yourself mentally and physically (assuming you're not in the new plugged in reality when even when you are away you are getting your email and texts).

But in the transitioned state where you have the opportunity to redefine all the things that you do, the term 'vacation' really doesn't even enter the vocabulary. In the fully transitioned state, you've defined all the things you want to be doing. You've determined how much time and energy you want to put into each thing. And therefore, you've reached a state of balance which fully nourishes your body and soul...at least until such time as some life crisis comes which you know will come and therefore throw yourself into your enjoyable transitioned state with as much vigor and concentration as possible.

So Wife and I do not take vacations. We travel.

Travel is an activity unto itself, just like I still do some work, and I exercise, and I meditate, and I cook. I travel

Travel is something that allows us to satisfy a wide variety of interests whether they be photography, food, history, culture, etc. It makes us use of all kinds of skills that atrophy if you are just staying home doing the same things over and over. You have to figure out where you're going to go, what you're going to do, what something says, where things are in a grocery store, how you're going to get from point A to point B. You walk all over the place because there are things to see. You have to plan. You have to react. You have to make judgments and decisions. It is the antithesis of taking a cruise. You don't want all things planned out for you.

When I get home from one of our travels, I feel my mental and physical facilities have been sharpened to a fine edge. Within months of being home and back in a routine, I find that I'm slowly becoming more rote, less engaged, lazier.

Travel is just part of who we are.