Travel with no restraints

 

Ahhh. Travel! Hold on. Let me put my shoes on. Okay. I’m ready. Let’s go. Doesn’t matter where.

This weeks GBE’s topic is “If money, travel, and time were no object, what would your top 5 list of countries you would like to visit and spend time in look like?”  Health wasn't mentioned so we'll assume it is not limited either.

The truth is, I never had a huge desire to visit other countries. I was never a group tour kind of person as I prefer to explore on my own time and itinerary. When I do that, I prefer to be able to understand the signs. Particularly if I’m driving.

That being said, I would love to see the old architecture of Rome, or immerse myself in the Britishness of England. (and my spell check tells me Britishness is a word I just made up) The canals of Venice or the city of Paris would also be at the top of the list. I’m sure I could spend at least a month exploring and photographing any of those destinations.

For the longest time, if any one asked me what other country I would like to visit, I would have said Australia. It seemed like the most American of other countries and offered a wide variety of scenery. By crikey, I could even understand the language. As I learned more about it, I found that most things there bite, scratch, sting, scrape, peck, kick or down right eat you. The excruciatingly long plane trip there seems even less desirable with that information.

Canada was closer but way to cold for me. I’m sure I could get lost in their wide expanse of territories and never find my way out.

Lately I have seen a lot of photos of Mexico. It’s fairly close and warm. They have lovely beaches that you can camp on and mountains and villages you can explore. It looks like it has a lot of possibilities even if there are some dangers. I would need get a fairly good grasp of Spanish before I would want to venture there.

I know I have exceeded my list of “5” but Norway and Nova Scotia would probably be at the top of my “must visit outside the USA” list.

I don’t feel the need to visit other countries because the good ‘ole USA holds enough diversity to keep me more than interested.

I don’t know if it as true as it used to be, but traveling to the far back countries of Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, or Louisiana were like dropping into another country, if not another world.

I fell in love with the red landscapes of Utah. I was nervous about camping out in the back of my pickup truck in the middle of nowhere. When I settled into my spot on a cliff overlooking a vast landscape, I felt quite at home. Maybe I was an Indian in another life.

My work used to take me to some of the popular cities: New York, Las Vegas, Orlando, Anaheim, Seattle, Chicago, Dallas and probably a few others that don’t come to mind right now.

I have seen a lot of places, but my bucket list of places still keeps expanding. I still want to spend some time in Arizona and New Mexico. I want to park my RV on the beaches of Texas and enjoy the sounds of ocean and wind right outside my window. I want to spend more time in Montana. I want to visit the ghost towns of the old west-even the ones that are tourist attractions. I have barely researched Idaho, but what I have seen looks interesting. While I have been to Washington DC, I have yet to see the coast of the state of Washington. I want to experience “boondocking” in the western states before those areas are shut down due to overuse, lack of funds (our taxes), or misuse by people that trash them then move on to the next spot.

From the rocky cliffs of Maine, through the green trees of the East and Midwest, and past the red rocks of the West, America holds a variety of different “countries” within it’s coasts. I can understand the language, I can read all the signs, and know the rules of life here.

I have no need to travel to another country. My USA bucket list of places to go far exceeds the time I have left to see them.

“My bags are packed and I’m ready to go”-Peter, Paul and Mary (and John Denver) “Leaving on a Jet Plane”.