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I Think I Am Done With This Traveling Thing
Edward Suhadi comment 0 Comments

I actually said those words to Francy while waiting to pick up our van a couple of weeks ago.

We’re still a little bit early so we just hung out in our Airbnb home until it is time for us to leave.

We’ve been in Toronto for a couple of days and to be honest, I was kinda bummed. Unenergized. Not joyous. Meh.

It’s not about Toronto. And it is not about the frequency of our travels. I never been to Toronto and this trip is the first I took after choosing not to go overseas for more than a year (that’s quite a long time for a person in my profession).

It’s just that I was reaffirming my feelings about traveling:

That traveling for only the sake of traveling (read: vacation) has lost its appeal to me.

Me and Francy has been fortunate to have been able to go to a lot of places in the world for long stretches of time, and we are grateful and thankful to God for every chance that we get.

But I don’t want to visit exotic beautiful places all the time, with first class tickets and moving from one fancy boutique hotels to another. That is so not the life that I want.

Of course I will always be traveling. One of the greatest thinga in being a photographer is you get to travel to beautiful places for your assignments and projects. That’s the whole point actually. It’s the difference between going as a holiday, or going to create something in a beautiful place.

A lot of you probably say, “Well, it is easy for you to say because you’ve done all that.” Well, I did have done all that. And if I can say something as a guy that has done all that, it is not that exciting.

I’ve written about this before in this post The Good Life – and I will say it again on the last day of this 2 week long Campervan Canada Adventure: Life is about fulfilling your purpose, using your passion, making an impact and leaving a legacy.

Travel (as a leisure) is a good way to refill your energy for you to come back to real life and do all that.

You don’t work so you could afford to travel. You don’t lead a miserable life while dreaming about traveling the world. You travel so you could learn about life, and you travel so you could rest, refill, and give life your best shots.

Don’t get it backwards now.

I think my best time in life is not when I was licking the gelato in Positano South Italy, or when I was rowing the boat in a lake in Finland, or when I was driving my campervan by The Niagara Falls just now.

My best time in life is when I know that I live for something. To make an impact to the people around me. To fight for what I believe in. Might not be the most comfortable situations like what I am experiencing right now, but those are my most fulfilling moments.

I can leave you one tip if you want to have a great holiday/vacation:

You have to earn it.

You have to have given your best shot in what you do in life. You have to be weary and tired from fighting the right battles. You have to be weak from overcoming obstacles, dealing with difficult circumstances. You have to be all bruised up and bleeding from fighting your dream.

If you have lead such a life, then your every vacation will be the best times of your life.

As for me and Francy: I think this Canada trip is enough vacation for us for a long-long time. For the next one, we have to really earn it first.

canada