Travel has been an important part of my life—as meditation, relaxation, exercise, escape, and a vehicle for teaching. I highly recommend it whether you do it alone, with a group, or with a friend or family member. Here are highlights of some of my fondly remembered trips, with a little advice for free at the end.
After a long marriage, I was divorced and looking around for escapes from the mundane and divorce lawyers. My ex escaped on a sailboat, but despite considering myself a maritime attorney, sailing across the ocean was not for me; rather, I longed for hikes to faraway places. So, I booked a trip sponsored by Overseas Adventure Travel to tour the famed ruins of Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu had always been on my bucket list. This was a trip with a group of strangers, but I was there by myself and made a friend along the way. It was a challenging trek to the peaks of Machu Picchu, but also very inspirational to see the well-preserved ruins early in the morning without any crowds. I was grateful for the experience, including the charming city of Cuzco and other parts of the Inca Trail. Who knew the Inca Trail was thousands of miles long and that there remained major ruins like “Sacsayhuaman Peru” along the way? I’m just grateful the Spanish invaders never found Machu Picchu buried as it was high up in the mountains and protected by the forest and the locals who kept their secret.
I returned to my everyday life as an attorney and got used to living alone. But I was still anxious to travel again and an article in the New York Times caught my attention. . It was about a new website called “Travel Companion Exchange,” which matched individuals to others looking to travel to various locations in the United States and around the world. You could save money by matching with a roommate – male or female. TCE was old-fashioned compared to today’s dating websites – it had a printed newsletter and used fax machines to match profiles. Each profile/match cost $1, and it came across the rickety fax machine. I submitted a picture of myself from my visit to Machu Picchu. And a gentleman in Pennsylvania saw the picture and reached out to me. We ended up traveling the world for the next twenty-two years!
I’m pleased to share a few highlights of life with my “Travel Companion”—hiking the Canadian Rockies, walking the Cotswolds in England over an old Roman trail; touring the home of Karen Blixen (known as the writer Isaak Dinesen) in Rungsted, where she wrote “Out of Africa” and the modern Louisiana Museum of Art in northern Denmark; taking a cruise along the Danube River from Prague to Budapest and seeing for the first time the historic town of Cesky Krumlov – a designated World Heritage Site; attending the Aspen Music Festival; hiking in Glacier National Park where the glaciers are sadly disappearing at a very fast rate; and hiking the Tongass National Forest in Alaska during a pelting rainstorm. During the winter, we often rented a condo in Key West, Florida, and watched the famous sunsets, toured Ernest Hemingway’s home, and ate a lot of fresh fish and key lime pie.
One year, the “Travel Companion” and I went to Salzburg, Austria, and stayed at a lovely castle on a lake where “Sound of Music” was supposedly filmed. The purpose of this trip was to receive training for teaching overseas on behalf of the Center for International Legal Studies (CILS). We were subsequently posted to Warsaw, Poland, where I taught American constitutional law to students who studied law at the college level. They all aced the class – I was an easy grader then -- and on the weekends, we got to see two lovely cities in Poland – Gdansk on the Baltic Sea, which had to be totally rebuilt after WWII – and now has a famous maritime museum; and Krakow in the South near the border with the Czech Republic, which was left alone during WWII. Krakow, the former official capital of Poland, is cited (by me and others) as one of Europe's most beautiful cities and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978. The original Wawel Castle still stands, as does the newly opened Schindler Museum at the factory where Oskar Schindler saved his workers during the Nazi occupation of Poland and that Steven Spielberg made famous in the film “Schindler’s List.”
That chapter of my life has ended, and I am finding other ways to satisfy my love of travel.
Touring Frida Kahlo’s home, now a museum in Mexico City, was always on my bucket list. So, this past January, my daughter Diane, a friend, and I booked a guided trip to Mexico City to visit this now-famous museum where Frida once lived, which contains her art studio and many works of art. Frida is a legend to me. I have long admired her grit and fortitude in living with Diego Rivera and enduring many physical tragedies. Of course, I love her art, too. After Mexico City, we drove to San Miguel de Allende, which is now home to many expats and a great cultural and food center. The art and food there exceeded my expectations. Two weeks on the road with my daughter, great memories, and no fights. Worth the trip. Looking forward to more family trips to exotic places on my bucket list.
I hope my list has whetted your appetite. If you love to travel like I do, renew your passport, join a group, ask a friend or family member along for the ride, fill up your bucket list again, and head out the door. You never know who you’ll meet or what will inspire you along the way.
