Travel Tuesday: Imagining A World

**I wrote this and attempted to post last night, but our power went out. No problem for my laptop, but that meant we had no Wi-fi. I have to admit, though, that working on a computer by candlelight for a bit was kind of cool.**

Have I mentioned that planning a vacation is almost as much fun for me as the actual vacation?

During the planning stages, everything is exciting. Everything is possible. Everything - and everywhere - is still ahead of you. It's thrilling in all sorts of ways.

You can imagine romance on a desert isle. Or seeing a show on the West End. Or re-finding that one place with the perfect chocolates that was right around the corner from that gallery in that one place that you're sure you'll find again if you go look for it.

Planning a trip - on many levels - is all about the imagining. It's about the thrill of adventure, without the agony of bills.

After all, no matter where you decide to go, as soon as you make that decision the trip, itself, has parameters. Once you choose your location, there will be things you simply can no longer think about doing. (Going to Paris? Then you can't see the Grand Canyon. That kind of thing.)

And once you have a location, then you start looking at activities, and lodging, and meals, and you have to start planning for the budget. And for packing. And deciding whether you really want to spend that many hours on a plane/in a car/on a bus.

Then there's actually being where you planned to go. It's thrilling and exciting, or calming and blissful, or familial and comfort-food-y. And that can all be amazing. And it usually is amazing - frequently even more than you'd ever imagined it would be.

And just when you think it's about perfect, vacation is over and you're home and describing just how perfect it was to all of your friends, and you start thinking about that next trip. And imagining how good it will be...