Is a Weekend Trip Worth It?
For as long as I can remember, traveling has been super important to me. Every time I’ve been able to get away from home and visit a place I’ve never seen before, it felt like I was living life the right way. But unfortunately, for most people, the ability to travel is fraught with obstacles in the form of jobs, pets, children, disagreements over where to travel, and of course, resources. For some of those reasons, among others, I have chosen to defer traveling many times over the years.
However, as I recently explained to my husband, there will always be a good reason not to do the things you want to do. This doesn’t just apply to traveling - it could be a special hobby, a career change, or any number of other things you want to do but feel like you shouldn’t because it’s too hard, too inconvenient, or just feels too selfish.
Further, one of the main reasons my traveling has been limited is because of my full-time job. It’s not easy to get away when you only have 2-3 weeks of vacation/PTO per year. And I tend to feel like what’s the point of going somewhere if I won’t be able to stay very long. But I think this mindset is inherently flawed. First of all, my full-time job isn’t going away, so I can’t use that as an excuse forever if I really want to travel. And second, the point of traveling is to see a new place, get away from home, break out of your routine, have fun, etc. A trip doesn’t have to be long to be all of those things, a realization that makes me feel like I’ve opened a door of possibilities.
Earlier this year, I flew to Boston to see one of my best friends for the first time in years. Normally, she visits us because she has much more flexibility with her time. But this time, I decided to go over there because she had mentioned that she was having a hard time cleaning up her house, and I wanted to help. Long story short, we spent relatively little time cleaning, and much more of that trip going out, laughing, eating delicious food, and catching up. The fact that I was there for only about 48 hours didn’t make much difference in terms of how much fun I had.
Similarly, I booked a bougie hotel for my husband and I to stay at for his birthday back in January. We only stayed one night (each night is about $700-$800), but still had an unforgettable time. The hotel is themed to look like Italy, which we really enjoyed. We ate delicious food, bought souvenirs for ourselves and our daughters, and felt so relaxed. We didn’t stay there for even a full 24 hours, but that trip was so worth it.
With these two fun trips in mind, I just recently decided to book a flight for me and my husband to go to NYC in September. We will only be staying there for one night, but in that time, we’ll be able to see Wicked the Musical, walk through Central Park, eat the best pizza we can find, and hit Times Square. In the perfect world, I’d be able to fly us over there for a whole month and we would be able to do everything we want to do, but it’s okay that that’s not the case. It’s more important for us to go places we want to go than for us to go for as long as we want to go.
That’s not to say that longer trips mean nothing. I’m only saying that it’s better to do a little bit of what we want, rather than nothing at all. A lot of people talk about what they’re going to do when they retire, when they have more time, or when they have less responsibilities, but why not live your life right now? Our professional and familial obligations are not something we have to get through in order to have fun. It’s important to live our lives in between the not-so-fun moments.
XOXO, Alexis.