Oh the Places We Will Go

In this week's episode  of Strive Seek Find  I'm joined by my wife Amy as we talk about the different types of travel we have enjoyed in the last 20 years.  from solo trips to family  we talk about the strengths and challenges of each type of travel. 


link to  Travel Style's Episode :    https://www.buzzsprout.com/1125929/8840233


https://linktr.ee/striveseekfind

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In life, we have two choices, to experience or to exist. Every week, each of us makes that choice to either seek a better way to live or to get by. walk alongside me each week on the strife seek find podcast as we continue to seek our own brilliant future. It's a quiet, romantic beach. You lean in for a kiss from your wife just in time to hear, dad. That's gross. And you remember, you're traveling with the fam. Welcome to the 86th episode of The strive seek fine podcast. I'm your host, chance Whitmore. About two weeks ago, my wife and I took a brief and much needed trip with a group of our friends. It was wonderful. 36 hours in Phoenix. For the first time in years, Amy and I ran around and ran away overnight. It was a chance to breathe. So tonight, I thought it would be fun to welcome back Amy to the program and talk about the different styles of traveling we've had in the last 20 years. Welcome back, honey. Well, thank you. Where are we? Tonight? Where What are we drinking tonight? We're a little bit out of ordinary today. Yeah, I lost the battle today. I won. I wanted to go down to the new brewery in town and have a pint while we did this. Her response was to say coffee or she was going on strike. So therefore she wins I lose. This is a not uncommon event. It also helps that the brewery was closed it's a holiday. It was a better story until you said that. I am drinking a very lovely after remember when I ordered Carmel salted caramel latte with almond milk. And we are sitting at the fine am in downtown Caldwell. And I ordered a Carmel hot chocolate, because coffee in all of its forms is disgusting. And we're always on the perpetual hunt for the perfect cocoa for him. And we really don't have very good luck finding the cocoa that he likes. What did you think of today's it was fine. It was not the best, but it was fine. Okay, so can you tell us what it is that you're looking for in a cocoa that you're not finding. When you come to a coffee shop, you can't have your cocoa taste like they didn't clean the machine, the milk steamer and got coffee in your cocoa because that ruins it right away. A lot of places just want to hand you chocolate milk warmed up tepidly and it needs more chocolate than chocolate milk, or at least the gallon of chocolate milk they generally use needs to have a good quality syrup. For me, you have to have a good quality carnal sauce. If I'm going to get a ton of empty calories having a drink. That's not alcohol, it might as well be something of some quality. Okay, so when it comes to cocoa, do you prefer your cocoa to be mixed with water or mixed with milk? I don't, I don't care. It can become with powdered milk but I grew up on homemade hot cocoa mix. That was just fine. The problem is a lot of the places that make it with the milk make it to make it to week, okay. Okay, so the search continues. My coffee however, is lovely. And I love it. And it is a super busy day in here today. So you may hear people in the background. The find them and downtown is located right next to the skating rink. And so we just happened to hit it when the Zamboni was cleaning the rink. And so we have all sorts of extra people in here today. And I'm going to stress this wouldn't have happened at the brewery. Certainly different clientele. Probably not on a day like today because it is very family friendly. But I'm going to kibitz about this for the rest of our time talking. In the meantime, I have a lovely coffee that they did the whole foam art and the top which always makes my day and I got a cookie out of it. Well, let's get down to the business of the day. While we can't claim to be constant travelers, although we'd like to be and we're working on it. Many of our trips away from home are designed to spend time with family. And travel costs being what they are. That means their opportunities be made to travel otherwise our foreign few between but gratefully taken advantage of. Tonight, rather than looking at the cost of travel or where we go, we thought we'd focus on the different sorts of trips we've been on in the last few years, solos trips, couples, trips, family trips, and groups or planning trips. And so we begin with traveling solo. Now, I for one, have not done much of this, without the Asterix, the asterik being for work, these trips tend to be more limiting than others, your purpose is outside yourself. Rephrase, your main purpose is outside yourself. That makes it limited in a lot of ways. That being said, there are still opportunities. Give us an example from your last runaway deer, which was pre COVID. Strangely enough, right. I traveled to the Midwest for my business for my Lipsense business. And it was it was a really wonderful experience and totally different from any of the other trips that I've taken either with you or with our family, or with girlfriends. And it really it is it's kind of your I mean, lifelong learner. And so you are totally like focused on the task at hand and energized. And you come away with all this purpose. And this meaning. Oh, I did another trip to with the school, we went to some summit training in Minneapolis, right Minneapolis just before COVID. So yeah, January of 2020, we went to Minneapolis and same thing, traveling with a bunch of teachers and again, focused, energized, lots of ideas and inspiration. And you just you come away with such a different perspective on what it is that you went in for. And you would lose that if you were traveling with your family or with a sweetheart because you are your focuses. Not totally on what you're doing. Yeah, diversified. And so to kind of immerse yourself on those trips. That's kind of cool. You traveled to Palm Springs. Yeah. And that was kind of the last one I'd had my other one canceled out from under me. But it was a unique trip for me. And the product of this podcast probably wouldn't exist without that trip. You were as a speaker for that convention. Yeah, I got to get going and speak about the work we were doing at my school at the time. Strangely enough, I had ended up leaving the school right before the presentation and promoted to a different position in the district. And the key thing for that I learned I was energized by the presentation because some of the things that came out of it. I had people find me downtown to talk about the presentation, I had people asking if they could use my slides for the presentation, similar presentations with their their school staffs. And it just was very gratifying to see the work path. It took me outside of my comfort zone because getting up in front of people is something I do well. It's also something I don't seek out. So that seeking out doing that was a challenge for me a growth opportunity. And then doing it alone. Put me in a situation where I met a great deal of people and learned a great deal of new things as I explored a place I'd never been before. I also got the reminder that not to pretend you're tough. I decided not to wait for the bus to go back to the hotel when it was 112 and fall spring in Palm Springs and went for the mile walk and went and laid under the air conditioning then for the rest of the day after I got back. Lesson one don't do dumb things when you're by yourself when we don't have a wing ma'am. But it didn't feel dumb until I was halfway there. Wait, that's generally what happens. All right. Next up, we have traveling as a couple. So a million years ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was recently married. I learned that not everyone has the same idea of what a vacation is, for instance, honey. So we when we got married, I spent a great deal of time and energy planning the wedding and chance spent a great deal of time and energy planning the honeymoon which you know, at the time we thought was a great division of labor, put our put our talents you know where we we thought that they would be best served I just wanted to show up, get married and have a couple of beers. I didn't, I didn't need to know the details. And we were traveling to the east coast because chances are grandparents were not able to attend that wedding. And so we wanted to go over there and be able to, for me to meet them because they weren't traveling anymore. And we thought why not we both like historical sites, and we hadn't been to that part of the country. And we'd like to go check it out. And and, you know, do some sightseeing. And originally, we had had high hopes and great, great dreams of going to Scotland on our honeymoon. And when you know, when push comes to shove, when you're planning a wedding, sometimes those destination honeymoons are not going to happen. And so we kind of dropped back a little bit and thought, no, we'll be more practical. So so far everything is planning out, right? We're in Williamsburg, Virginia, Colonial Williamsburg. I'd never been to Virginia. I was born in North Carolina, but didn't live there very long. And my mother's family is still there. Any of you that are listening. It's been a it's been a while since I've been out there. And so we spent our first days there. Then we ran down to see my grandparents then we read back out and spent the rest of our honeymoon on our own. Now, what we learned quickly, is what I thought a hot day of a honeymoon should look like when I have a limited amount of time to see all these cool historical sites. And what Amy needed after the wedding were two very different things. Would you like to touch on that? I'm totally exhausted after the wedding. We've had family in town I've we've been planning things we've been organizing things we had. Oh, man. So anyways, so coming out of the wedding, I was totally exhausted. We got to the hotel late the night before we left super early and got on the plane that morning after. And by the time we made it to the East Coast. It was ready for a nap did what did we do that first everything? I don't even remember, but I'm sure it was too much. Basically, that's what it came down to. I had every day planned out to the gills where it was. Can we get here? Can we get there. And one day in particular, I remember quite well. We hit Jamestown that we'd hit two or three other places. We hit the Jamestown historical recreation. And we and then about, we were driving down to the archaeology site. And we got about halfway there and Amy just got physically ill I kind of just collapsed in their street. And Williamsburg is the the historical areas over there. There's I mean, they really are they're dirt streets, because they're recreations of the spaces when so people are dressed in the time period. And I mean, they're just fascinating. They're awesome. Really well done. But yeah, so we're out there in the beating sun and the humidity. And I've got a hat on, but it's not enough. And all of a sudden I just kind of collapse in the street, and tense. It's like, oh, I think we're done. Now. I may have pushed it too far. So what the difference is Amy needed. And this is Amy even when she's not exhausted. A lay on the beach type of honeymoon. And what I was looking for and was doing was what Amy has termed in the past. It's the same approach as I have to hiking the forest March. You go as fast as you can long as you can exhaust yourself and then recover when you return home. And you hope you can return home. There have been times I've wondered, are we going to make it back? The other piece of this is that comes with the same thing as one day I got really excited to do something that wasn't a historical site. So we went to an amusement park. I'm like, Sure, let's go. That'll be fun. And then we discovered what I thought an amusement park was and my wife did, were two different things. An amusement park is kind of like where you get funnel cakes and ice cream. And you walk around and you look at the sights and you listen to people screaming on the roller coasters and it's fun. And I'd rather be one of those people laughing on the roller coasters and the drops and everything else and I got the I don't do those. Strangely enough in the year since she started but a little bit. We lucked out on the weather that day there was a tornado warning and they kicked us out of the park. Otherwise we may not have made it through the honeymoon. That is true. This all comes down to About being aware of what your partner needs on your vacation, as well as what you're hoping for on your vacation is extremely important. Well, and I want to specify too, I'm not totally about just laying on the beach and doing nothing, but at the same time to have a little bit of that downtime is so nice. Because how many times do we get that? We're not talking about illusions and fantasy land right now. That comes next. And while traveling as a couple did teach us the importance of compromise, then comes traveling with the family and kids the equation, Amy, how does adding kids to a vacation change things in your mind, it used to be that I only had to worry about packing myself now I'm packing a lot more. Yeah, the level of complexity goes way up. Because not only are you then taking into consideration the space that each of those kids and all of their belongings take up, but then also how each one travels. So for example, sometimes you've got a kid that's carsick, you've got another one that, that you've got a couple that don't get along. All of the things that all the dynamics, all the family dynamics that go into moving as a body somewhere, kind of fall into place. And so those added complexity that we didn't have when we it's just the two of us. Agreed. And you can add things as simple as age of the kids hi to the kids, because I remember taking the kids when we only had two kids to the amusement park and our at the time youngest. Now our middle daughter was so ticked off that she was a quarter inch too short to ride the roller coasters and just sat there outside and bawled while I wrote them, while her sister who was tall enough, was ticked that I made her go on it. She wanted no part of it. So you where you go becomes an issue. Yeah, because you can't be unless you're very lucky. And you don't go a lot of places. We tried to go a place every year. But usually it's a drive and a and some sort of camping, we've gone to the the coast and camped on the beach, we've gone into the mountains and camped on the lake, late, we've done a lot of different things. And there have been some other things where we've rented houses, hotels, but those are the exception rather than the rule. Yeah. But the goal is to try to give kids new experiences and opportunities for growth, whether it's to see an aquarium, whether it's to swim in a lake, whether it's to see the ocean, because in a landlocked state, that's something that kids tend to romanticize a lot. And our youngest is still romanticizing it, because even because what she saw going the Oregon Coast last year, ticked her off, because it wasn't the right kind of ocean, it was not the right kind of ocean. She was okay. And she had a lot of fun. But we came back and she's like, Mom, when are we going to Hawaii, because really, that's the ocean. The picture in her head did not match the Oregon coast. And all of these things come down to what you can afford, obviously. But at the end of it, when you put it together and you do it. For we parental units, our enjoyment and happiness is less important than the youngsters having a great time. Now, that doesn't mean we don't have fun. I mean, we make sure we go when we're on the coast or any place, we tag in and go to a local brewery and try something or a local winery and try something and the kids kind of roll their eyes and go along with it. But that is the exception rather than the rule. We generally try to choose activities that think we think will will catch their capture their attention or their interest or imagination. We want them to know that this world is a lot bigger than the town in which they're growing up. We of course, as teachers work with a lot of students who never have the opportunity to leave their hometown, let alone travel outside the state or, or even just travel around the state. Many of them don't have the resources or the ability or the time off work to be able to do that. And so that is something that we want to share with our kids and something that we want them to understand. When I was in high school, I had an opportunity to travel with my school to Spain and it opened my world it opened my eyes. It opened my perspective and while that's not as grandiose as what we're doing with the kids, we are trying to open it up a little bit so that they're always is bigger than what their immediate vicinity is. And I can remember at one point having five or six kids in one of my classes that hadn't ever been to the town, which is the State Capitol, which is 22 miles away from the high school, I was working at what shocked me. But the years gone by, that remains, it's not in their world. Growing up, it was, we went to North Carolina, every few years and saw family. And it was amazing. And it opened my mind in a way, that stain in small town, Eastern Idaho never would have. But we didn't get much beyond. So giving these opportunities to our kids was important to both of us. But that being said, it's not a vacation. Because we are the entertainment directors then on those trips, and making sure that kids are fed on a timely basis because boy, our kids are hangry if they get don't get fed, and making sure that you know that they can sleep at night when they were little I remember that it was always a concern of are they going to be able to sleep Are we are we going to be able to sleep because if they don't sleep, then we're not going to sleep. As they get older, we're starting to take them into places like museums and on to public transportation. That is, we have to worry a little bit more about their behavior and about their reactions to things they're unfamiliar with. And so preparing them for that, and being on guard for that. So that that way they don't publicly embarrass themselves becomes then an ongoing thing as well. And so it is it's like being a tour director. After Well, no bathroom breaks. traveling with kids mean to quadruple your number of bathroom breaks, you get to visit every bathroom facility everywhere you go. And Outpost COVID Just making sure our kids have manners, because they haven't been socialized the way that they would have been otherwise, the overall impact ends up being exhausting, great, extremely important for what, what we want for our kids long term, but exhausting. And finally, traveling with friends or in a group, this one can be really special or really, really hard. Amy, what's the best part of traveling with a group of friends? Well, a lot of it depends on on the group of friends. But say it's a group of friends that you get on really well with and spend a significant time with. It is wonderful. It is, you know, you have those friends that you hang out with and you're like, we like the same things, we laugh at the same things, we enjoy doing a lot of the same things. And being around them brings richness, and you know, to an experience that that maybe wasn't there in that complexity before. And so traveling with a group of friends kind of it just adds a layer of complexity and richness to the experience. So, for me traveling with friends can be incredibly rewarding with the right people, like you said, the two requirements in my mind, as you said, people you'd love to spend time with. And the other one is people comfortable going their own way. No, I think that's very true. Yes, yes. Yeah, people, people that that was one of the things that when we were in Scotland that I really appreciated about our friends that we traveled with. Because we did the majority of that trip together, we traveled in the same vehicle, we stayed in the same vehicles, we went to the same places to eat. And we got along really well. And then the last day, two days that we were in Edinburgh, we kind of divided and conquered we kind of we you know, there's so much to see here. Let's let's just kind of go and do our own thing and meet back up. And it was fantastic to not only be able to do that, but to not feel like you're being exclusive or like you were trying to get away from people or like you were tired of each other. But just to just expand the experience base and say, You know what, I want to go see the National Museum of Art. And I'm okay with doing that. And if anyone wants to come with me great, and if you want to go do your own thing. That's great. And so we did. That's a great example. I mean I'm gonna even go back to exhibits going back before that when we were in Inverness. We ended up having going our own way. And we went out to glodon, right? Uh huh, we did, we went out to clutton and saw the battlefield while they walked in the town. And then when we had dinner later that night, we met up and talked about our experiences, which cool, which was cool. And then we ended up going out and staying in a bar while they were out doing something else. And we ended up getting an experience with session music and sitting there talking to a local all evening, and we tried to recreate it with them the next night. And he wasn't the same, because there was no session music. And the guy who were going round for round with was mean, they no longer there, he had moved along. So now, if you when you're traveling with a group who is less comfortable with each other, perhaps a little less real, spend a little less time together, but you can still be successful. But a lot of the time you spend time trying to be polite and tripping over each other, rather than being real, or you're real, and then you've offended somebody. Yeah, and that's, and that's hard. And I wonder sometimes about travel groups, sometimes when they are combining different groups that have not spent a significant time together, like tour buses and tour guide, you know, like, the the big public tour, I'm not putting it together, right. In Spain, we combined my Idaho group combined with the group from the south. And, and the two groups didn't mix well. We traveled together, but there was, there was some friction there between the two groups, and, and it wasn't even anything and with animosity, it was just there weird. We had a hard time. And when you travel with people that you have just met, or that you maybe don't ordinarily spend a whole lot of time with, you don't always know how, what their expectations are, or what their preferred style of traveling is, or even hear about travel styles in an earlier episode. Podcast. I'll put the link in the description. Yep. And so you know, sometimes there are pet peeves that that you would know about. And so I don't know, there's there's pros and cons there. It's I mean, you can learn about people in that way too. It just It does, it creates kind of a more stilted situation. So I'm going to just say, and I'll ask you, what if you share this, the greatest strength of traveling with, specifically with friends, or a group of people, is quite honestly, trying things that you would never have thought of trying. Because when it's you and I traveling, you're traveling with the family, we traveled together, we look for things we each like and try to figure out, at least subconsciously, how is our partner going to fold into that? Right? With the kids? It's what experiences do they want? What experiences do they need? With a group of adults, you get a lot of differentiated experiences that you would have never tried as a couple. You know what, I just equated this to going wine tasting? Yes, or or beer tasting? Well, okay, and so does this make sense. So the idea that you go out tasting with people to taste a variety of things that you've never tasted before, or to experience them through the eyes of somebody else. And to hear somebody else describe a flavor or describe a taste or to go, Oh, my goodness, this would be fantastic with Greek chicken or something like that. It just brings a richness to the experience experience in a group setting that sometimes you miss out on, if you were, say, sitting there by yourself doing a flight, or if you were even there, just the two of us. We get a lot from each other. We bounce off of each other a lot when we're talking about things. But then when you add other people to that equation, and we get more from it, even then there's a greater richness and experience. I mean, I'm going to think back to when we were wine tasting in Hawaii. The fact that it was fairly stilted and quick experience because we didn't have we discussed each one. But we didn't have three or four of us doing it. Right. So we missed out a little bit. And I think you have a point the richness of experiences increased by the the fact that shared with others. Absolutely. Anything else you'd like to add about this before we sign off for the day? We need to travel more. I completely agree and And if anybody would like to sponsor us on a world tour, we will gladly podcast from anywhere. Absolutely, absolutely. I love this idea. So no matter how you travel, get out there and experience life because otherwise you don't know what you're missing. You don't know what you really want to seek, and you may stumble across and find something you really love. Have a great day. And that concludes this edition of strife seek find. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, or would just like to support the podcast. Here are a few ways you can do it. You can leave a review on Apple podcasts or pod chaser. They will help bring more listeners to the podcast. If that isn't your style, you can buy me a coffee or purchase some merch. Links are in the podcast description. Finally, if you have ideas or feedback, please reach out to the strive seek find page on Facebook or to at@chancewhitmore5 on Twitter. Until next time, keep seeking your own brilliant future. Have a great day.