My dad can’t stop laughing at me these days, and it’s partially because every time I talk to him, I have a new plan to go somewhere.  This is fairly common – I usually have these plans stacking up in my brain – but he’s laughing at me now because I told him at Christmas (in Florida) that we’d be avoiding any more travel for the year to put the money into our house renovations.

This makes some sense, as we’ve been totally ignoring house renovation for travel since we moved in over four years ago.  The fact that I’ve been without a closet for four years and haven’t really cared that much as long as I could go to Morocco shows how much I love to travel; it also might indicate a teeny problem – I can’t stop myself from wanting to be somewhere else.

Since Christmas, we’ve been to Walt Disney World for my birthday, which we were able to justify because it was a birthday trip, and then again six months later for Gary’s – who’d only been the once before – which both don’t really count as they’re sort of like gifts, right?  All of which came only five months after our month-long trip through the Mediterranean, and four months after visiting my parents for Christmas.  Now I’ve already:

  • Decided I’d like to plan Kilimanjaro for my 40th birthday;
  • Looked into Japanese summer immersion programs because I’d really just like to learn Japanese already
  • Pestered Gary about going to Las Vegas or just somewhere for a weekend before the end of the summer.

Point being: a) There is not much ‘planning for renovations’ on this list; and b) the intervals between trip and ‘OMG I NEED TO GO AWAY’ are getting shorter all the time.

Maybe it’s that I’m a novelty addict, now used to getting constant input from new sources – Twitter, Facebook, television, the web, and on and on – and I’ve trained myself to become used to shifts in scenery in the same way.  Maybe I need to be out of my element.  Maybe – and this is what I like to think – it’s that I feel the most myself when I travel, especially in cities; urban areas are my home no matter where in the world I am, and I’ve felt as comfortable navigating Istanbul and Kyoto as I have Toronto.

I’m incredibly lucky to have travelled to where I have and to have the opportunity to plan trips in the future; to have a home of my own that I can invest in.  I wish it were enough – but it seems like there’ll never be enough travel to fill the hole in my life.

If you don’t travel full time, how do you handle itchy feet?  If you do, let us know what you think anyway!

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