Day 19, Summer in Asia, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Everyone has a travel rhythm that works for them. Our rhythm goes like this: when you’ve walked an unexpected marathon in 95 degree heat plus high humidity, and almost had your arms ripped off repeatedly by the Nascar Saigon 500 sidewalk scooters, the next day you recover and do more low key things like watching Youtube with your teen and eat at the 7-11 Vietnamese equivalent like it’s a buffet.
This chill day at the hotel got me to thinking about space.
“Give them space,” lists every family travel blog I’ve ever read, as a key to travel survival and happiness. We are currently in a two-bedroom apartment with other options where the girls could have their own space, but here they are, happily crammed onto one bed. Seems no matter how big a living box we opt for, 4 bedrooms, 3, 2, they end up in one small space.
Traveling often and for longer periods of time like months and years, reshapes how you ground yourself and your perception of what’s necessary to self-create inner happiness. You can’t rely on a familiar abode, a collection of treasured belongings, your favorite foodicles, or how you normally entertain yourself.
When traveling you don’t bring any of that with you. On top of that, everything around you is changing, unfamiliar, fluid. You only have you and the people you’re traveling with to make each place feel like home–obvious and profound at the same time. It’s one of those life skills that’s more than a heavy lifter, it may be the mother of all life skills–learning how to create your own happiness regardless of where you are and what happiness props you have at your fingertips. Otherwise known as; Make any box your happy place.
Here I was minding my own business, reading my phone, then this happened.
Extended travel with family creates out of the norm situations, often enabling connections with each other that are more raw, organic, and even gritty at times. That’s also why extended travel doesn’t appeal to every family. But for us–we can’t get enough of it. The girls do all kinds of life scheduling gymnastics so they won’t miss a trip.
