How much time do you spend dreaming about travel?  Am I the only one who plans numerous trips that I never end up taking?  What inspires you to travel?

Exploring the Sahara in Morocco

I must admit that I spend a hell of a lot of time dreaming and planning travel.  Far more time than I spend actually travelling.  The amount of trips that I have planned in word documents and excel far outnumber the amount of trips I have taken, let alone the number of times I have daydreamed about destinations.  If you don’t believe me, ask my husband.  I drive him crazy with all this travel planning.

What inspires me to travel?

Often, it is other bloggers. I am very inspired to go to Costa Rica and Croatia at the moment thanks to the awesome bloggers I have connected with recently. The media and travel websites also inspire me. I often wish that I did not live so far away from the rest of the world.  I try to convince J that we should live in London for awhile, so we can explore more often.  I wonder if part of the reason why he refuses is so he isn’t dragged away even more often that he is now?!

Exploring Petra

I am also inspired to travel by life by home.  When life is feeling mundane and boring, it is hard for me to not want to look up some flight prices, google some articles about whatever place is currently on my mind or grab a guidebook.  Although my primary reason to travel is not about escape, it is hard to not want to escape “normal” (read boring) life occasionally.

My kids also inspire me to travel.  I want them to experience new cultures, languages and people.  I want them to grow up as global citizens, embracing differences.  We hope that they will be trilingual and be able to experience the world in a way that we haven’t.  I love the quality family time that travel gives us that we struggle to find at home.

But what mainly inspires me to travel is that I want to live life.  I want to experience everything.  Ok, maybe not everything, but I do want to experience everywhere.  I want to know what it’s like to dance in Carnival in Rio or island hop down the Croatian coast in a yacht or see whales breaching in Iceland.  I want to be able to communicate in other languages and dance the tango.  I want to look back at my life and know that I experienced everything that I could, that I took every opportunity and, to quote Frank Sinatra, that I did it my way.

Spanish immersion studies in Todos Santos, Guatemala

Travel is not just a hobby or a vacation for me.  It is my passion.  It is how I want to live my life.  I know that when I am on my death bed that I will never regret the fact that we rent our home, that I left a job or that our kids don’t get many toys for their birthdays.  But I might regret the fact that I never did the Trans Mongolian.

You may also like to read why we travel with young kids.

What inspires you to travel?