I happened to be missing travel today and realized that 10 years ago today we were wrapping up our first, semi-successful international trip – two weeks in Italy.
Now, missing travel is not something new. But in all honesty, it is something I haven’t been doing in the latter part of the pandemic. I recently read an article in the New York Times which resonated, I think I was suffering from languishing.
Sidenote: Have you heard about languishing? It’s a fascinating concept which attempts to explain the in-between feeling which falls in the middle of the depression to thriving spectrum.
“It wasn’t burnout — we still had energy. It wasn’t depression — we didn’t feel hopeless. We just felt somewhat joyless and aimless. It turns out there’s a name for that: languishing. Languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield. And it might be the dominant emotion of 2021.”
– Adam Grant, NY Times 2021
However, now that Ben and I are fully vaccinated and travel restrictions are starting to lift a switch has flipped and I am ready for some adventure.
So, I was thinking about travel and it hit me; we were in Italy a decade ago today. It feels like a lifetime ago and just yesterday for so many reasons.
If I think about all of the things we did, I am simultaneously embarrassed and proud of how we handled our first international trip. And, I know with complete confidence we would do things 100% differently if we were going to recreate this trip and leave next week.
But while we have grown and learned so much about ourselves and traveling during our decade of travel I can also say with total certainty we wouldn’t be where we are, and our lives wouldn’t look like they do, without that first fateful trip abroad.
Admittedly, our trip to Italy started off as a big mess. Between being unprepared for jet lag, language barriers, lack of technological help, and inexperience, we had a real comedy of errors going on for the first few days. But as Kelly Clarkson says, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” and that trip was the foundation of so much for us.
The good, the bad, the ugly
What good is reminiscing if you can’t poke a little fun at yourself, right? And, with 10 years of life and travel experience since our trip, our hindsight is especially clear.
We traveled without cell phones
Let me set the scene. It was 2011, and while I am pretty sure we both had upgraded from our flip phones and had our first iPhones, we were nervous about incurring international roaming fees (remember that?!) so we left them at home. Also, since wi-fi wasn’t a thing then, or at least we weren’t using it, we didn’t think our phones would be helpful to us at all. Crazy how we wouldn’t leave the country today without the apps our cell phones offer to help us on the road!
We lucked out the Amalfi Coast Tour we booked for the first day of our trip didn’t follow through on the confirmation phone call they said they required the night before because we would’ve been out of luck. And, we were absolutely not prepared for our first hotel which didn’t have an alarm clock or a clock of any kind. Adding to the problem, we didn’t have watches. Not having an alarm or clock for our 8 a.m. tour made things a bit difficult – basically, I didn’t sleep because I was afraid we’d miss our tour. I bet you can guess what our first purchase in Italy was. Yep, a watch.
We hiked Mt. Vesuvius in dress shoes and jeans
In our cute naiveté and over-planning, we read a lot of articles about what people in Italy wear. We were told foreigners stuck out for lots of reasons, but tennis shoes, shorts, and t-shirts were at the top of the list. We wanted to be respectful of the culture, so we packed a bit nicer clothes. When we spent a morning exploring Pompeii and decided to check out Mt. Vesuvius as well, we found our footwear to be a bit unreliable, and our jeans to be very uncomfortable.
While we still dress pretty conservatively while traveling, especially in more conservative countries, I don’t think we will ever hike in dress shoes again. Respectful or not, tennis shoes are sometimes necessary.
We loaded every minute of every day with tours and attractions
In our 10 years of international travel we have learned lots of things about ourselves. However, on our first trip in Italy, we didn’t yet know that Renaissance Art Museums aren’t really our jam. In fact, during one day in Florence we visited either 3 or 4 of the most well-known and respected Renaissance Art exhibits in the world. This was an incredibly poor decision for several reasons: First, I like museums, but there is a limit and more than one in a day is my limit. Second, Ben and I have a limit on how many renditions of Madonna y Bambino we can take, and that was met very quickly at these Renaissance Art museums. Third, of all museums, art museums are my least favorite, and trying to tackle several in one day – especially when they focus on a kind of art I don’t love, was too much. Finally, we got yelled at when we were at the Galleria dell’Accademia where the Statue of David is located, which was the final straw for me.
Funny story, our guidebook had a section on the Statue of David that pointed out David’s hands and feet are disproportionately large compared to a typical human. This is a well-known fact, and there are lots of theories on why Michelangelo made the decision. However, when I was sharing that information with Ben, an art student who had set up in front of the statue to draw David was unhappy with my “criticism” of one of the most well-loved statues in the world.
Even when we weren’t in Florence trying to break the Guinness World Record of “Most Renaissance Art Museums in One Day,” our other days were packed as well. From morning to night, we were running around making sure we saw everything we wanted to. It didn’t help that we visited Naples, the Amalfi Coast, Pompeii, Venice, Florence, Sienna, Tuscany, and Rome all in 14 days. Our itinerary was jam-packed and while we saw a lot, we also didn’t enjoy our time as much as we could’ve because we’ve learned that isn’t how we like to travel.
One of our least favorite stops on the trip was Venice, but it also might have been our favorite city because we had 2+ days there and after a few hours, there is nothing to do except get lost in the city. So we spent our days wandering around and sitting by canals drinking wine and eating amazing food.
During our two years on the road, our favorite thing to do was to play a game called “Left, right, straight.” We would wander, come to an intersection, and choose a direction. It allowed us to see things we wouldn’t normally see, and it gave us a better feeling of what life was really like in the places we visited. Not just the tourist spots, but the alleys where the locals got their food, or the parks filled with families. That was missing during our trip to Italy and I think our trip suffered because of it.
We did things we’d never done, saw things we’d never seen
Our first night in Italy was spent in Naples. We were having a terrible time between the garbage strike, the jet lag, being ripped off by a local pizza place, and having a hard time finding our hotel. Eventually, we found the tiny little plaque that led us down the dark alley to our lodging. When we arrived, we got the weirdest keys we’ve ever seen to check-in. One of the keys had to have been more than 6 inches long – it needed to fit in an abnormally thick door – but in order to fit in your pocket, it bent in half. I’ve never seen another key like it since, and it has stuck with me for a decade.
It was the little things like that which continued to build over those two weeks we spent in Italy. We saw things we didn’t know existed, and we heard about things we didn’t know. We tried foods we’d never had before, and we witnessed life in a way we hadn’t ever seen. It opened our eyes and it awakened a hunger in both of us we haven’t been able to satiate since.
Travel has taught us we don’t know much, but it has encouraged us to learn. It showed us there isn’t a “right” way to do things, and it has changed our lives for the better.
Without this trip to Italy, I am sure we wouldn’t have started traveling as much as we have, and I know we wouldn’t have quit our jobs to travel for two years. Maybe we would have had several children by now and never have left the country, or maybe the travel bug would’ve bitten us a bit later. All I know is that while it wasn’t my favorite international trip (and that isn’t Italy’s fault, it was our inexperience) it remains the one that forever changed our lives. I am so grateful we went.
Cheers to 10 years of international adventure!
