Travel Locally, Where You Are

Many people dream of traveling to faraway places to experience new culture and sightsee. Yes, you learn a ton, you learn new places, and the culture is hard to learn when not traveling.

But what most forget is that you can also travel where you live now. Instead of going far, you can explore a random place near you. Take a map, choose a place, and drive in that direction, and see where you land. Don’t plan too much. I bet, even in the radius of a couple of kms, you haven’t visited all the places. Sometimes it needs a bit of creativity, but actually not much.

My family trips are usually that way. We say we go somewhere, but we don’t really know where. Sometimes we sit in the car, and I look at my wife and ask: “And, where do we go?” 🙂. She usually smiles and says, “You decide”.

We start, and while driving, we might change the location. Depending on the weather, on mood, and on following our gut and intuition. And you can’t believe, we always find some new places here in Switzerland, a random forest place, or recently, in the middle of nowhere, there was a nice way that we could follow up, all inside a small guided walk.

Images were hanging in the air, wooden figures, platforms, or colorful walls. Just like that, because we found it randomly, and it was so fun. Even there was snow, as it was a bit higher, we didn’t have it where we live.

It didn’t take long, not much preparation. We always bring food tough so that we can spend more time outside.

I call it, traveling where you are. You don’t need to fly to the other side of the world. You might just find the place you always dreamed of, just like that, randomly.

I can recommend it to anyone. It’s very relaxing and also interesting, as you never know what things you will explore together. Sometimes you might not find “anything” specific, but that’s also OK, then you had a nice time outside. With time, you also get better to naturally find what you like.

Origin: Derek Sivers said or wrote that once?
References: Traveling