I’d better travel now before it’s too late

A lot of my older friends are passing away, It’s a sobering thought, as I wrestle with my mortality, and realise that none of us get out of this alive.

It reminds me that we have to do what we can do, while we can, for as long as we can. This includes travelling. About 20 years ago, my partner, and I started doing a lot of international traveling. We went overseas every year and enjoyed our trips. Unfortunately, I broke my knee on one of those journeys, which put a real dent in my travel adventures.

Suddenly I had to deal with mobility problems, which not only created PTSD. It made doing some of the things that used to come easily for me far more difficult. Still, we continued to travel and I amended my activities a bit. My partner loves to travel. She enjoys it more than I do because it takes her five minutes to pack, and she’s not prone to anxiety like I am. I have to deal with medications, clunky shoes, and other types of things. But I still go with her. Even though I’m a nervous wreck before we go, once I’m on the plane, I let go and I always enjoy myself.

We are going on a barge trip later this year. It fills me with dread to a certain degree, but on another level, I am excited about it. How much longer are we going to be able to take these types of trips? Should we do it now before things become more problematic? She has an undiagnosed heart condition that has not been completely addressed, so I don’t know what the future holds for the two of us. I have digestive issues which continue to come and go.

Is it easier to wait and see what’s going to happen with our health? Or are we forfeiting precious time by waiting and being cautious? Perhaps we should just plunge forward and make these plans. With travel insurance, we can always cancel later if something else comes up. But our travel tolerances have also changed in recent years.

We have flirted with going on a river cruise again, but those ports get so crowded with all the other river cruises cramming in to see the same monuments. An ocean cruise necessitates more crowds, but there is a lot more to do on those boats.

An escorted tour includes a crew to handle all your luggage, but you constantly have to pack and unpack, as you visit various cities. And then there are those cobblestones…Yuck. When we lived in a crappy condo in Los Angeles, traveling always promised an opulent hotel room that was far nicer than where we lived. But since we traded that old condo for a beautiful home in Florida, most hotel rooms don’t look as nice as where we live.

Sometimes we wonder why we spend so much money going someplace else when we have such beauty around us.

But we continue to travel. So we have three planned trips planned for this year, and I am going to have to face all three of them. Although I am filled with trepidation about all of them, I know that you have to keep on living your life. You can’t be governed by fear of the unknown.