The Non-Bucket List Things

When I was a teenager living in a small town, I dreamed about travel. I made lists of all the places I wanted to see, I read books based all over the world, I wrote stories about people who lived in different countries. In my brief experiences with travel, I had always found happiness on the road, and I longed to get back to it.

Fast forward a decade (give or take), and just like I always wished and dreamed and planned, travel is an essential part of my life.  I get so much joy in the planning and the doing of travel, and it is truly one of my passions.

When I first started to dream of travel, and indeed when I first started traveling, the accepted way of planning was to grab a guidebook, visit the library, or visit the Internet (although that came later). Nowadays, travel is a huge industry, partly dominated by bloggers, full of start-ups by digital nomads all over the world.

In some ways, I think this is great. I think our generation is using travel to help us define the world we want to make, for ourselves–like every generation does. And like every generation, this looks a little different from to previous generations, and therefore it can seem…rebellious.

I am always one to embrace travel and trying new things, but these days, I’m starting to wonder–can we travel too much? Are there drawbacks to being a nomad?

I first noticed that I was experiencing travel burn out several autumns, when we moved to Budapest and suddenly–I didn’t want to go anywhere. I didn’t want to leave our new, lovely flat, and I reveled in my teaching. I suddenly was so happy to wake up at the same time every day, and have a routine. I loved our new home and felt a sudden need to…not go. For once.

A part of me feels like I was betraying my dreams. Don’t get me wrong–there’s nothing wrong with having a home and stability. I just thought it was never what I wanted.

Fast forward to now, living in my hometown with my husband and baby, I can’t help but wonder why I didn’t want a true home and stability. And, I was finally able to admit to myself that sometimes, yes, I use travel to escape. I use it to avoid monotony and boredom; I use it so spice up my life; I use it to avoid falling into a rut where I wake up and twenty years of my life have suddenly passed.

Travel is great for all of these things, travel is great for expanding your world view, and travel can be a great form of therapy, self-expression, adventure and reflection. I could go on and on about what travel means to me, what it has done for me, and more.

And now, the travel world is saturated with travel advice and bucket lists and advice on how to wring every bit out of your life. All things I love to read about, things I’ve written, philosophies I believe in.

But I’m also realizing that routine and monotony don’t have to be bad things. Having a comfort zone isn’t bad–it’s part of being human. That doesn’t mean you should never get out of it–but how can you get out of your comfort zone if you never even have one? In addition, it can get tiring to always want to get out of your comfort zone–and if I truly practiced that philosophy, I would never stay in a job longer than a year. I wouldn’t be married. I wouldn’t have stuck with a blog for so long.

Sometimes, this perpetual traveler doesn’t want to travel anywhere at all.

And is that such a bad thing?

Maybe it’s time for all of us to take a deep breath and slow down. There’s so much to see–I completely get it. I struggle with travel-fear-of-missing-out-syndrome on a daily basis. But, rushing to see it all kind of defeats the purpose, I’m finally realizing.

Maybe instead of rushing to that next bucket list item and crossing it off, thinking we are living our life fullest that way, we also need to pay attention to the things in life that aren’t bucket-list worthy. Things like a student who does something so ridiculous you can’t help but laugh. Like the fellow teacher at school who finally smiled at me. Like my husband always making me breakfast. Like my mom sending me texts full of purple-heart emojis. Like a messy email from a friend full of inside jokes and grammar mistakes. Like seeing an old man feeding the neighborhood cats every day. Like lighting a candle with a match. Like the buds on the trees finally appearing. Like an unexpected break in a long day. Like the fact that I am raising a small human who, every day, changes just a little bit. A little girl who every day, brings me joy in the small moments.

Life is full of the non-bucket list things, too–and I’m starting to learn that they are just as important.