The Magic of Travel

Some years your family vacations in Italy for ten days; sometimes your vacation is a long weekend in Cleveland, Ohio. Last year was Italy. (I swoon at the memories.) This year, for us, it was Cleveland.

It’s been a full summer, and we’ve been enjoying all of the beauty that summer has to offer, but we’ve stayed close to home. This past weekend was the USA Triathlon Age Group National Championship, for which my husband had qualified. It is a fun bucket list type of event, and it happened to be somewhere relatively close and interesting. Cleveland is a city dear to my husband’s heart, his college town, and full of personal history. So, Ciao Italy, this year we chose Cleveland.

Crazy as it sounds, though, our short trip to the Midwest was (pretty much) as amazing as our Italian adventure was last year.

I mean, I KNOW. It’s hard to believe. Truly, Italy is incredible. Extraordinary. It’s an absolute favorite place, so dreamy and rich in history, food, wine, and beauty. It was beyond amazing to share it with our kids last year. Recently we were going through my daughter’s V-tech camera and stumbled across pictures that she took in Venice. How I mean, how cool is it to have pictures of the golden ceilings and grand staircases of the Doge’s palace on your camera at four years old??! How amazing.

I mean, Cleveland’s a pretty cool town, but I don’t think many people would put it in the same category for a vacation destinations. Ever, probably. Clearly one is much more desirable . (Sorry Cleveland!). So how on God’s green earth could our trip to the domestic location have been as good?? What made Cleveland so magical?

Because we showed up. We talked. We listened. We paid attention to one another. We laughed with our children. We were playful. We allowed ourselves to notice things, to look at personal history, to see special places, to share memories of the past and the moments right in front of us.

The deep truth is that your experience is really only as interesting and as meaningful as you make it. Whether you’re in the most beautiful places, like the Doge’s Palace, a gondola on the Grand Canal, and swimming in glorious Lake Como, or if you’re wiggling your toes in sandy beaches of Lake Erie, touring the aquarium, the Flats, downtown, and the Farm Park, YOU are there. Your thoughts, your engagement, your connections, your interest and enjoyment. You could be in the most amazingly beautiful location, but if you don’t show up and engage, it doesn’t matter.

As the old saying goes, “Wherever you go, there you are.” At the end of the trip, at the end of the day, what really matters about any vacation isn’t so much where you go, but how you show up. The real variable, actually, is YOU. The most interesting person in any room is the one who is the most interested in the people and things around them. Same goes for vacation, really. Any destination can be amazing… or mediocre. It’s up to you. You want to enjoy it?, you want to be interested and inspired? You have to decide to.

When you do, magic awaits….

Travel is a pause. Resting from your regular pace, whatever that may be, can allow your brain and your heart the space to breathe. In that breathe, you can find new energy and renewed strength.

Travel is perspective. It allows us the chance to look at our own lives from a different side, to see things from a new angle. We may see where we need to grow and maybe even the areas that we need to take ourselves less seriously. Even something so simple as watching an interaction between loved ones, whether you understand the language or not, can remind us that what we experience is universal, and can guide us in continuing to improve and love better.

Travel is full of possibility. Seeing new places, new cultures, whether a short drive or a long plane ride away, shows us things beyond our normal line of vision and our normal routines. Seeing someone doing things differently- admiring a unique style of clothing or decor, eating lunch in a different setting at a different time, or enjoying a unique cup of coffee can all experiences that introduce us to new ways of doing things, and new ways of engaging in life even after we return home.

Travel is imperfect. We all know that there is so much that we can’t control in life, and especially in mew environments. Those times are so valuable. That imperfection can teach you to be flexible, to change up your routines, and to flex your patience muscles. It’s especially true when traveling with kids, and the benefits (even at a cost sometimes!) for both our kids and ourselves are immense.

These are some of the incredible gifts that come with travel. But YOU are the key that can unlock all of them. You only will find the magic if you open yourself to it.

And you know what? That magic that you find actually IS you. YOU and your potential and your excitement and your dreams are what you see reflected back to you from whatever pool of beauty you may look upon or discover. The real magic of travel is not that you find beautiful things around the world (that’s a benefit, obviously. But alone it can’t mean that much.). The real magic is the meaning that you take from it, and that is what you find within yourself.

Think to some of your favorite trips. It wasn’t just about how beautiful someplace was. It’s about how you FELT while you were there. I’m sure we all have memories of being somewhere beautiful, but when you pull the memory from your mental index catalog, you remember feeling of unrest or pain, of struggle internal or external. You also probably can find memories that were so beautiful and delicious, a feast for the heart, that occurred in less memorable places, like a somewhat shabby cottage or at the edge of a less than pristine body of water. Because the beauty was within your heart, within a moment. It may be around all you, but it only has lasting effect if it can find a place within you.

Travel can invite a fire of good; you, my friend, are the spark. Whether you go to Cleveland or Italy, Disneyland or the local carnival, a Caribbean beach or the community pool, remember that it’s only as interesting as you decide to make it. The real magic that you find is what you bring. Travel, be inspired, enjoy. Most of all engage, love, and be your most interested, interesting YOU. 💖