Stop saving your sense of adventure for vacation

There’s something about the color of her green top that screams summer. Just me?

Whenever Todd and I drive to visit his sister in Hampton, New Brunswick, we pass through Norton, a little community built along the Kennebecasis River. The first time we drove through, we both noticed it immediately. There's something about the place that feels a little like stepping back in time, and before we'd even made it through town, we'd looked at each other and said, "We could retire here."

We have absolutely no plans to move to Norton.

That has not stopped us from conducting a very thorough imaginary search for our future retirement neighbourhood.

Now, whenever we pass through, we take a little detour. We'll turn down a street we haven't explored before or drive through a different part of town. Sometimes we look at the houses, but mostly we're checking out the shops, landmarks, the river, and whatever else we haven't noticed before. We've basically been slowly touring Norton for years, pretending we're deciding which part of town would suit us best.

It costs us nothing except a few extra minutes on a drive we were already making, and yet I genuinely look forward to it.

I think that's because we've accidentally turned Norton into a tiny adventure. We're paying attention. We're curious. We're looking at ordinary things as though they're worth discovering.

Which makes me wonder how often we save that version of ourselves for vacation.

We behave differently when we're travelling

Think about the way you behave when you're somewhere you've never been before.

You look around. You notice buildings. You read signs and historical plaques. You wander into little shops just to see what's inside. You try food you've never eaten before. You take the scenic route because you have no idea what's around the next corner.

You might spend half an hour walking through a market you'd normally rush past at home. You'll drive twenty minutes to see a lighthouse, stand there for ten minutes, take twelve pictures of it, and declare the entire excursion worthwhile.

Travel makes us curious.

Then we come home and become extremely efficient.

We drive the same roads, shop at the same stores, order from the same restaurants, and spend our weekends doing the things that need to be done. We know exactly how to get from Point A to Point B, and unless there's construction blocking our usual route, we rarely have a reason to find out what's over there.

There's nothing wrong with routine. Routine makes life manageable.

But somewhere along the way, it's easy to start treating curiosity as something we only get to indulge when we're away from home.

Travel and exploration aren't quite the same thing

Definitely on MY bucket list… the flowers more than the building.

If you want to spend three weeks travelling through Japan, I'm not going to tell you that visiting a Japanese restaurant in your hometown is basically the same thing.

It isn't.

Some experiences require travel, and travel costs money. There are places you can only see by going there, cultures you understand differently when you're surrounded by them, and experiences that simply can't be recreated close to home.

If those experiences matter to you, save for them. Plan for them. Put them on your list of things you genuinely want to do.

But here's where I think we get ourselves into trouble: we start treating travel and exploration as though they're the same thing.

You might not be able to afford the trip you want this year. That doesn't mean you can't explore anything.

Travel requires you to go somewhere. Exploration requires you to be curious.

And curiosity is considerably cheaper.

---

Read: How to be a tourist in your own town

---

Don't put your adventurous life on hold

When people tell themselves they can't afford to travel right now, sometimes they unintentionally put that whole part of themselves away.

“You don’t have to make your life smaller while you’re waiting until you can afford something bigger.”

Maybe next year.

When the kids are older.

When we've paid off the car.

When I have more vacation time.

When flights aren't so expensive.

Some of those are perfectly good reasons to postpone a trip. What I don't love is the idea of postponing your entire sense of adventure along with it.

If Japan is three years away, those three years still count.

You don't have to make your life smaller while you're waiting until you can afford something bigger.

You can visit a town you've driven past a hundred times and finally see what's there. You can go to a cultural festival you've always meant to attend. You can try the Ethiopian restaurant across town, wander through a museum on a rainy Saturday, or go looking for the strange roadside attraction you saw on a sign two summers ago.

You can walk through a neighbourhood you've never explored. Visit a local historic site. Try a grocery store that specializes in food from another part of the world. Pick a direction on a Saturday morning and see where you end up.

You don't have to pretend any of those things are equivalent to travelling halfway around the world.

They're not supposed to be.

They're simply ways of keeping exploration in your life.

Culture doesn't require a passport either

I think we sometimes make the same mistake with culture.

We imagine experiencing another culture means physically travelling somewhere else, but there are opportunities to learn about how other people live, eat, celebrate, create and see the world all around us.

“Travel requires you to go somewhere. Exploration requires you to be curious.”

Depending on where you live, that might mean attending a cultural festival, trying a cuisine that's unfamiliar to you, visiting an exhibit, watching a film from another country, listening to music you've never explored, learning about the history of a community in your own area, or talking to people whose experiences are different from yours.

None of that makes you an expert on another culture, obviously. Eating one bowl of bibimbap does not qualify you to write your doctoral thesis on Korea.

But it can make you curious.

Maybe you try the food and want to know more about where it came from. Maybe you hear music you love and start exploring the artists behind it. Maybe a festival introduces you to a tradition you've never heard of, and you go home and read about it.

One experience leads to a question, which leads to another experience, which opens another little window into a world you didn't know much about before.

That's what curiosity does when you give it somewhere to go.

You don't need a bucket list for everything

I love big travel dreams. I think there's something wonderful about having places in the world you hope to see someday.

But I also think we've become a little too focused on collecting impressive experiences.

Bucket-list destinations. Once-in-a-lifetime trips. The places everyone says you absolutely have to see.

Exploration doesn't always have to be that ambitious.

Todd and I are not going to tell people about the magnificent afternoon we drove down another residential street in Norton. There will be no slideshow. Nobody needs to see the photographs because there aren't any.

That's not the point. We enjoy doing it.

Bring your travelling self home with you

The next time you travel somewhere, pay attention to who you become.

Maybe you're more curious. Maybe you talk to people more easily. Maybe you're willing to try unfamiliar food. Maybe you walk instead of driving because you want to see what's around you. Maybe you read every historical sign you pass. Maybe you take photographs of things you'd never bother photographing at home.

Maybe you simply say, "Let's go see," more often.

That's the person I think we sometimes forget to bring home.

I'm not saying you should spend your ordinary life pretending you're on vacation. You still have laundry to do, groceries to buy, work to finish, and bathrooms that apparently refuse to remain clean simply because you've cleaned them once.

But you can keep some of that curiosity. Every once in a while, take the unfamiliar road. Walk into the shop. Go to the festival. Try the food.

See what's there.

Michelle Arseneault is a certified life coach and instructional designer who loves helping women understand why life feels harder than it needs to, and what to do about it.

“I believe small, thoughtful changes usually have a bigger impact than dramatic overhauls. Around here, you'll usually find me exploring the psychology behind everyday life, creating practical tools, or asking questions that help you see things from a new angle.”

You might also like…