anticipation

Start before you leave

by Steve Brock on August 6, 2013

Here at The Meaningful Traveler, I’m about to launch into a series on Seeing the Old in New Ways. I’ll use a series of photographs from my recent trip to Europe to point out ways to think about, photograph and just plain see with new eyes the places you think you know so well.

But how do you go about finding a fresh perspective on places you know firsthand or have viewed in numerous pictures? We’ll see…

For now, I want to start with this simple reminder: Start your trip before you arrive or preferably, even before you leave home.

Think about - practice in your head before your trip - the idea of seeing with new eyes, capturing images in a fresh way or looking beyond the obvious. If you do this before you depart, you’ll greatly increase the odds of actually pulling it off once you get to your destination. They say with athletics that you can derive half or even more of the benefits of physically practicing – say, perfecting your free throw in basketball – if you visualize doing it over and over even when you’re not on the court. The same applies to thinking about how you will see on your trip.

If this all sounds rather abstract, then just do this: Be prepared. Be open and curious. Travel expectantly, looking for something even when you least likely expect it.

Here’s a great example:

Rainbow from plane window

My son Connor and I are chatting on the plane as we leave Seattle for Amsterdam a few weeks ago. We’re no more than five to ten minutes into the flight when we look out the window and see this rainbow. I fly out of Seattle all the time and rarely see anything like this. But here we are on a trip to Europe with our anticipation geared toward what we’ll see once we get there, and God throws us a rainbow in our own backyard.

Had I been too consumed with what lay ahead of me – Europe – instead of being present to the journey itself, I would have missed this. Fortunately, I came prepared, had my camera right with me, and handed it to Connor who snapped this shot.

Think about what it means to be present, to see – to truly see – before you leave and chances are you’ll be more adept at realizing the wonder even in the most familiar of scenes. Seeing the world anew rarely happens by accident. It takes practice. But it’s something you can practice anywhere and any time.

Now might be a good time to start…

 

 

Be the first to comment

Wonder in the rearview mirror

by Steve Brock on June 26, 2013

Airplane wing at sunsetI forget wonder.

Every stinkin’ day. I forget that it isn’t a stinkin’ day, but a glorious one. I just lose the ability to see it.

Work, busyness, over-familiarity – all these help crowd out my ability (and even my desire) to see wonder.

Lately, busyness has made me not even care about wonder or anything other than getting through this day, this week. But then, I step back for a brief moment – a rare quiet moment in this case on an airplane – and I become tangibly aware of the loss.

So what do you do when you miss wonder, either missing it as you miss an old friend or missing it like you just missed the chance to do something remarkable? You start looking. You intentionally pursue wonder. But how?

One way is to take a trip.

Travel helps us recover wonder for several reasons.

First, wonder occurs when we experience something new. You can’t beat travel for introducing novelty.

Second, travel reminds us that wonder matters. Distance from home increases our awareness that much of what means most to us in life is found in beauty, mystery and that longing for what we can’t explain.

Third, travel gets us out of both our comfort zones and our jaded complacency. We actually go looking for wonder on a trip instead of ignoring it as we do at home.

But what happens when you don’t have time for a trip or can’t afford one? I could say that you simply make time and take a trip, even if it is only minutes from your home. That does work, but here’s something else to consider.

Look forward and look back.

Looking forward means to anticipate the next trip you might have, even if that is weeks or months away. Dreaming about your next adventure is almost – almost – as much fun as experiencing it. Plus, it primes you to think about wonder. But what happens if you have no trip on the horizon?

You look back. Anticipation for a trip is valuable, but so is reflection on past ones. And the two are more related than you might think.

Over the next several entries, I’m going to use a trip I took two years ago as an example of how to find wonder in the rearview mirror, so to speak. The experience of doing this has helped rekindle for me a sense of wonder in the present, or at least the desire to pursue wonder more than I have.

Feeling dry? Uninspired? Tired, cynical and a bit grumpy? Wonder – or reflection – won’t solve all your problems, but it will help you put them in perspective.

Sometimes that’s all you need.

 

Be the first to comment

Unnecessary trips

by Steve Brock on May 14, 2013

Some of the best trips are the ones you don’t need to go on.

Untanum TracksI’m referring to the unplanned, spontaneous kinds. The ones with no worry about reservations or itineraries, no concern for what you’ll see or do. They are the trips that just happen, not out of necessity, but just because you can.

Don’t get me wrong: I love planning trips. Oftentimes, anticipation is one of the best parts of travel. However, along with the preparation and forethought can come unnecessary expectations of the place you’re visiting, the people you hope to meet or the ones with whom you’re traveling (including yourself!).

Sometimes the unexpected trip is better: You just show up and take whatever comes your way.

My family and I did this a few weeks ago. We knew we had to be in Ellensburg, Washington on a Saturday for my oldest son’s performance at the State Finals for high school musicians. That was the “necessary” trip. However, we stayed overnight and took off Sunday morning to hike a nearby trail (Untanum Creek Canyon) I had once heard about.

The only planning consisted of making the decision the night before to go there and then asking for directions the next morning. The rest was a spontaneous, totally “unnecessary” trip on a gorgeous day that included crossing over a suspension bridge, under some railroad tracks (pictured above), hiking along a creek past beaver dams and seeing a herd of bighorn sheep on the walls of the canyon that surrounded us.

Untanum Creek Canyon

Would the day have been any different had we planned it out and made it an intentional destination? Who knows? But by not thinking much about it before we got there, it added to the surprise factor of the day. It made our explorations feel like more of a discovery despite the dozen other people on the trail who clearly planned out their adventure more than we did (the backpacks were a good indicator…).

Fishing on the Yakima River near Untanum

I’ve recently been reading Paul Theroix’s book, The Tao of Travel. It contains quotes from his own travel books and insights from many other traveler writers over the years. One quote of his I read last night applies here:

“Travel is at its most rewarding when it ceases to be about your reaching a destination and becomes indistinguishable from living your life.”

When you incorporate little surprise trips within your daily life, both are enhanced. Sure, you have to carve out the time for even the short trip. But too often I find I use lack of time as an excuse to do nothing.

Instead, this recent family hike reminded me of how much room there is in this world: room in my schedule if I make it so, room in the places around me to explore and room in my life for growth and possibility.

When I consider it this way, maybe these small, spontaneous adventures aren’t so unnecessary after all…

1 comment

Getting the most out of a guidebook

by Steve Brock February 21, 2011

Do guidebooks help you on a trip or predispose you to see what everyone else has already seen? If you use them well, they might prove more valuable than you think.

Read the full article →

The best travel advice ever

by Steve Brock February 18, 2011

One of the best bits of advice I’ve ever received regarding travel is as unlikely as it is effective.

Read the full article →

Planning and Control

by Steve Brock February 4, 2011

You’ll have a much better trip when you concentrate primarily on those things you can control and trust God with the rest. This is true not only during the trip itself but also during the planning stage of your trip, often for some surprising reasons…

Read the full article →

Planning and Regret

by Steve Brock February 1, 2011

You can make the anticipation phase of your trip more enjoyable and meaningful and also avoid regret later on by doing some pre-trip planning. Even if you prefer winging it and just showing up, you may find some hidden benefits to planning and making necessary reservations.

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries