wandermanifesto

Episode 1: A Single Step

Here we are in the first days of Summer 2022. I am in the 24 hour countdown to embark on a journey that was cancelled in 2020, rescheduled and cancelled again in 2021, and finally appears to be coming to fruition for real this time – June 2022. Memorial Day weekend has come and gone, students of all ages are completing their graduations, parents are getting ready for kids to be home from school, and many folks are on the brink of picking up those travel plans that had been long postponed throughout the pandemic. As our planet, and indeed our American dream, seemingly evolves toward the edge of apocalypse, I believe that my part in all this is to remember the beauty just a single step outside my little door, and, hopefully, to share those simple joys with you:

It has been years since I had a vision for this blog as a Manifesto to declare my deep love and commitment to being a citizen of the world, whether I’m walking in my neighborhood, taking a road trip, or traveling to another country. Now is the time to manifest the Manifesto, maybe a little better this time, even a little more appreciative of simply getting to walk out the door.

In crafting this first missive, I found an old draft of my 2016 Very First Blog (ahh the innocent pre-pandemic days) I had an old car that was literally taped together and a shitty commute, and I had put a stock photo of some feet sticking out of a non-descript ocean scene to represent ANY form of escape. Looking back, I can remember those days pretty vividly, and now I’m happy to say I have real photos of my own feet in a beach paradise! I never published that very first blog. I couldn’t commit.  But I really appreciate that old 2016 self – and I can appreciate that in all of our greatest wishes and dreams, we may not get ‘there’ tomorrow or even this year, but we can get there eventually. Wherever ‘there’ is. Time is relative, isn’t it? Isn’t it that old saying about the journey and not the destination? My love affair with travel was just beginning. I learned that Wanderlust was a blessing and not a curse: the desire and longing to travel. The desire and longing are all a part of the joy. The more I fall in love with travel, planning travel, dreaming about travel, remembering travel: the more I remember that I’m alive.

I have been blessed with Wanderlust.  As a matter of fact, anyone with an imagination can cultivate it, but I seem to have mastered it as a talent, and I do it particularly well behind a wheel or on my couch.  Now, thanks to the internet,  the entire world sits at one’s fingertips with the mere click of an email displaying photo collages of the world’s most beautiful trees, highest mountains, unique architecture, Netflix shows, Trip Advisor, and Travel Blogs!! I’ve always envied certain fearless who just seem to have it all in balance: they travel, they have love, family, and an interesting career… We wonder, ‘How Do They Do It?’.  Well, I’m pretty sure they start by DOING IT.  

A passion in practice is a powerful thing.  I have had too many second chances, health scares, and ‘should have’s’ to turn around now. I delight in discovery, I delight in wandering, I delight in what is around the next corner. Aren’t we lucky to be alive?

You know it’s been too long when an Airbnb commercial moves you to tears (it’s pretty good..) I know… yeah… I gotta get out of town… it’s been waaay too long in lockdown … I have planned the PLAN out of this trip… we leave tomorrow morning.. I can plan no more. I leave it to the Fates.

I hope to share my planning tips, impressions, mistakes, surprises, and top choices for authentic, cost-effective, meaningful, responsible experiences near and far with the world as our backyard.

Join me

Coming Soon Series 1: A Sicilian Adventure –

WonderK – The Journey of a Thousand Miles is but a single step’ – Lao Tzu