Yeah, no joke that literally happened. Photographic proof needed – ok here you go.
We were in Italy for the first time and trying to do everything we possibly could. Drunk on the thrill of being in a place that our children had only seen in textbooks and suffering from an undetected case of what I like to call the “we’re so close!” syndrome. When you travel to Europe from the US you realize, “Oh my goodness I could go see another fantastic location in no time at all. I should totally go do that too!” Let’s go see. Let’s go do. And do. And do. And do. Well, we did… until we dropped.
And it’s soooooo tempting! I catch us thinking like this more frequently than I’d like to admit.
Heading to London? Paris is so close! How far? Well Sally it’s just train-ride-under-the-English-Channel away.
And what about the Lake District? So close!! A day trip to Bristol is completely doable. Everything is so close! So we should definitely do everything.
Riiiiiight?!?
Maybe this is a United States thing. California thing for sure – possibly shared with my equally abnormally large-sized state of Texas. Traveling for hours is nothing to us. You can travel 10 hours across the state of Texas and. You’re. Still. In. Texas. Cali folks suffer the same “size matters” kinda issue.
So traveling for hours to see a new thing is not alien to us. We’re not only willing to do it.
- We expect it
- We wear the miles like a badge
But numbers don’t equal satisfaction. Amounts covered. Places seen. None of that matters if you drive yourself into the ground to get it all done.
I learned that the hard way watching helplessly as jetlagged kicked in and my family crashed slowly but surely every step we took across Florence. I didn’t account for the impact of flying from the US into Rome, nor the impact of the relaxing hum of a high-speed train on zero nights of good sleep. We showed up in one of the most walkable cities on the planet and by lunch, we could barely take another step.
Museum benches became beds. Anywhere we paused for more than 60 seconds led to horizontal positioning. “Just let me rest my eyes for a sec, Babe.”
And the frosting on the cake? In my wisdom, I’d booked the last train out that night because I wanted to make sure we didn’t have to miss anything.
Oh. Dear. Lord.
There were tickets purchased in advance and never used. Dinner reservations never shown up for. We were so jet lagged we couldn’t eat. Couldn’t climb another tower. The not-to-be-missed view was missed. The not-to-be-dissed steak was dissed.
I had to learn how to slow down. To enjoy more you need to cover less.
Will my husband and I go back to Florence? Yep. We want a redo (that looks like this).
I should have allowed us to take a day. Recover. Sleep in and just wander the neighborhood there in Rome. I could have scheduled the train trip to Florence for the next day.
Coulda shoulda woulda led me to my new way of planning travel.
There are days off now. There’s sleeping in time. No more than 1 – 2 big things a day. No more than two days of activity in a row without a break and some downtime. This is now what works for us.
A friend of mine once told me “The itinerary may be written on the page. But you’ll hang on to the memories you place in the margins.” I love that. Speaks to the power of the unscripted, the unplanned. And what we can experience if we just let ourselves be in a new place with our hearts and minds open.
I challenge you to take a look at your next itinerary with fresh eyes. Did you leave room? Is there space to just be? Because you might just be gifting yourself the best experience of all.
Until next time fellow travelers,