Showing posts with label long term travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label long term travel. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Does your Stuff keep you from traveling?


Before I started longer term travel 2+ years ago, I decided to sell my house and stuff so I could travel far and for more than the meager 1 or 2 weeks that I considered sufficient for a 'vacation'.

Back at the  property for a few months, this is the 3rd time I am sorting, donating and selling some of the tings that I can never take with me or afford to store.  

How VERY interesting to find the items I could never give away 2 years ago are now not worth the effort to sell! 

What do you do with a full dark room set up?  A pottery wheel?  Ski boots?  
Well every time I sort the boxes they become less important.  I am now down from perhaps 75 storage boxes to 25 and counting!  

But the bigger question is:  Has the financial need to sell my house so I can travel more, really been a crutch for WHY I don't travel more……  just did 14 international weeks this year along with the 8 to 10 domestic weeks so I am much closer to my goal.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Solo Travel with a Purpose

I have been using a new mantra this year:

Be a Traveler NOT a tourist
Learn something new,
Find a new adventure
Experience the local life
In 2008, after many years of trying to do or see everything in the  2 or 3 weeks a year my 24/7 job allowed, I finally took a sabbatical.

I had been dreaming of moving to Italy for part of the year for a long time.   All my vacations to Italy were wonderful.  My business trips were "interesting" but allowed me to see new parts of Italy.
But would I enjoy living there?   I am an Italian American but would real Italians accept me?  How do you manage in a town where you do not know anyone and do not speak the language fluently?
But it was now or never and I closed my business, obtained a dog sitter and took off for Sorrento for 3 months.  I know I would not have enjoyed or on some days survived this adventure without my weeks at Sorrento Lingue.    For all of you who already travel solo, I won't comment on solo travel, but long term travel opened a new door to my travel adventures.     
During my months in Italy "living as an Italian, not a tourist"  I searched for ways to enrich my days.
I spent hours exploring the towns along the sea.  Walking with a view of the sea was an endless pleasure.   But I still looked for a way to fit in, to participate,  not just another member of the expats organizations.


Tina, a former student at Sorrento Lingue, found a GREAT solution.        She did volunteer work!  See her story below.