5 Reasons Travel is ESSENTIAL in the Prime of Life

Like many in this phase of life, when my children started leaving home for college and adult life, I felt like some of my purpose in life was leaving with them. Suddenly I had a lot more time to fill and needed to start thinking about my life goals in a new way. Then I realized this loss was an opportunity as well. For the first time in many years I could to think about what I *wanted* to do for myself, versus what *needed* to be done. I had fewer excuses to talk myself out of making the leap to more frequent “big” travel. I didn’t want my husband to talk me out of it either, so I surprised him with a trip for both of us to Italy to celebrate our new status as empty nesters. That’s what kicked things off for us! While he’s not big on the planning side, luckily that’s my favorite thing and he is more than happy to come along for the ride.

Traveling the world has always been the ultimate goal for me. My vacation days while the kids were home were spent primarily visiting family, trips to the beach, trips centering around sports, or “kid” trips to Disney World/Universal Studios. As much as I love Disney as well, the World Showcase was not cutting it! It’s easy to slip into routines, or ruts, as adult life continues. And that leads me to #1:

1.Travel gives us the break we need from daily routine. When our day to day life is almost on autopilot, we need to create new neural connections with varied experiences to keep our brains healthy. Routine can be a dangerous thing for our mental health!

2. You used to center conversations around your kids, now it’s time to find something new to talk about with friends, family, and acquaintances. From my perspective (and hopefully that of those you speak to most often), NOTHING is as interesting as travel! I’m not saying drone on and on to a captive audience about the minutiae of your travel. Most people enjoy hearing about trip highlights, the best food you tried, or a new regional wine you found – possibly as something they can incorporate into their own travels or life.

3. We need to have trips and experiences to look forward to. It’s easy to slip into a quasi-depression when our life changes as drastically as it does when the kids embark on their own lives. Having a fun trip to think about and plan for (and SHOP for) makes life brighter!

4. As we get older and more set in our ways, seeing other ways of life and cultures help us remain open minded. This in turn makes us more able to connect to other generations. We we observe first hand the way different political systems, cultures, and religions work, we can better understand them.

5. It helps us connect to our travel partner, whoever that may be (yes, that works even if you are solo). If you are your own travel partner, you will get to know yourself better than ever before. Sometimes it’s an opportunity to reconnect with friend relationships that have been neglected while you raised children. And all marriages can benefit from shared enjoyable travel experiences to strengthen the bond.

I hope I’ve convinced you to get bitten by the travel bug. Drop me a line and let me know how I can help you! If travel anxiety is holding you back, check out this post. If the work involved in making it happen seems overwhelming, I love considering different destinations, itinerary planning, and finding the perfect restaurant or accommodation. Let me help you make the first move!