Today I’m sharing, with a bit of nostalgia, some of my favorite photos from the past three years; 2019 took us to Bermuda, Alaska, Maine, Cuba, on a Mediterranean cruise, and then on to a delightful road trip through Croatia, with a final couple of days in rainy, flooded Venice before flying home on Thanksgiving Day. We were thankful to be home, sharing turkey and reheated stuffing with family after a long journey.

This past November we spent a few brief hours on Thanksgiving Day with dear friends on Florida’s Gulf Coast. We met them years ago on Cabbage Key — but, that’s another story. What is pertinent and what seems fitting is that just as one chapter in our book of travel stories ended on Thanskgiving, the next began to take shape with a similar celebration. For us, it was another reason to be thankful, despite the somewhat complicated travel timing and logistics.

We are hungry for new experiences since the world shut down in March of 2020, and we have no fear of becoming satiated. This year, our travel plans — yes, we’ve made tentative plans through early 2023 — will take us to both familiar destinations and entirely new places.

Had previous plans jelled the way we hoped, we would now be packing for a voyage from Buenos Aires to Antarctica, followed by calls at Rio de Janeiro and several other Brazilian ports, before a trans-Atlantic crossing to Barcelona by way of Cabo Verde, off the coast of West Africa. But plans do not always work out the way we envision them. Sadly, that entire itinerary was scrapped more or less at the last minute because South American tourism has not yet fully rebounded from the global pandemic. As you know if you follow my blog, bookings were changed multiple times during the past two years, as (at last count) 16 cruises were canceled or altered so drastically that we decided to forgo them.

If we have learned anything through it all, it has been to embrace possibilities, to grab at every chance to be with family and friends, to not put off trips for no good reason, and to never give up on dreams. Opportunities to travel are sometimes fleeting, and there is no journey not to be savored.

I look forward to what is to come. But, during the past 20 months, I have also looked backward, back to past journeys as well as at some of the trips not taken. My husband and I are now reconsidering some of those itineraries. Our trips closer to home have been interesting and fulfilling, and we are happy to have had an opportunity to explore our new home state and its neighbors. We plan to do more of that!

It has been interesting. Not in any cosmic, earth-shattering way, but from a personal perspective. I came across a tattered, aging journal as I was sorting travel memorabilia, with notes from a driving trip through France and Spain many, many years ago. I was in Tarragona, a medieval Mediterranean port city in northern Spain. I was living in France at the time, and had not long before returned from a trip through the Middle East.

The entry is dated May 31, 1966. I read the words with wonder:

“I passed through Andorra, one of the smallest countries on earth, and thought, ‘I could be happy here.’ This happens often — the feeling passes in time, and even more quickly if I stay to try to shape reality from the dream. . . .”

It was just a brief entry, and it surprised me.

My younger self had not yet become a storyteller. I like to believe that the intervening years have taught me. Reading what I wrote then, I wondered about the circumstances. I cannot now recall them, except to say that I had hoped to return to Andorra briefly this spring, when a planned road trip through the Basque country of France and Spain would have put us close enough for a side trip to that intriguing small nation in the Pyrenees. That trip is one of those that has not yet materialized.

For many reasons, I am eager to be on the move again. Time seems to move faster today than it once did, and 24 months, for me at least, seems far too long to be essentially “at home.” My realization is that I am at least partially defined by the places I travel. Getting gone seems even more essential now. The road trips, brief flights and short cruises have simply been teases.

I have changed in the years since I first visited Andorra. I wonder if it has. Would I still be happy there, or was that the illusion of a younger me, a dream now withered and unimportant?

What about you? Are you ready to travel again? Do you yearn to meet new people, savor new sights, taste new foods and make new friends? I hope so, and I wish you safe travels and lasting memories, no matter where you choose to roam.

But, I hope you’ll continue to come along with me as I pack my bags for distant destinations.