How I Spent My Summer Vacation

(this blog was originally published on my WOW Travel Club website in 2020)

Actually, a better title would be, “How I Was Supposed to Spend My Summer Vacation.”

Because it’s June of 2020. It’s the summer of COVID-19.

Because everything is upended. Everything is cancelled. Everything is uncertain.

Not just for me, but for almost everyone on our planet.

This has never happened before. Ever! There have been pandemics, but viruses never spread as wide or as fast as this one which hitched a ride on travelers coming from central China and rapidly spread to every country on earth.

I was leading a WOW group in Morocco when the shit hit the fan, but my 22 WOWees and I staged a miraculous escape after borders were shut and international flight cancelled – thanks to Gabriel, my VP of Operations. (I call him my “Angel Gabriel” for good reason!)

Since then, my company has cancelled group travel programs to Armenia, Croatia, Kenya, Hungary, and several other central European countries. I was supposed to travel independently to Japan and Tibet, looking forward to a 200-mile-per-hour ride on the Shinkansen. Instead I went to Arizona, traveling 80 MPH for eight hours in a Jeep Cherokee!

One of the most recognizable landmarks in Tucson: this two-story Tyrannosaurus rex looms over one of its busiest intersections – reminding everyone to wear their mask.

Next month, I was looking forward to Switzerland. Instead, I’ll settle for Spokane.

My team is working remotely, not planning or operating trips, as would be typical this time of year. Instead, they’re busy negotiating with suppliers to get our advance payments returned on cancelled trips, and sending refund checks to our customers.

Travel has always been the most rewarding, exciting, and fulfilling business. But it’s not fun these days.

As for me, I’m finally taking my long-threatened sabbatical. I’m working on a memoir, with plenty of time to revive and relive memories from my nearly 40-year career in travel.

Since I can’t go anywhere else, I’ve been traveling down memory lane – searching through old photos from my 40-year career.

Ever since I circumnavigated the world with a backpack as a solo 20-something traveler, my life has revolved around foreign travel. I built a career and a travel company – dreaming it, doing it. Creating magical journeys for others to come to know what I have learned about the world. People are all the same. No matter the skin color, cuisine, costume, or customs – we all want the same things for ourselves and our children. Peace. Possibility. Freedom.

Oh, the irony. We are America – the land of the free! We extoll and export the idea of freedom of speech, of religion, of expression, of movement. Now we’re living in limbo. With an abundance of time, but no place to go. No freedom to travel because borders are closed. Flights are severely restricted. Hotels are shuttered. Cruise ships are docked.

This is, of course, good news to the animals, the air, and the oceans. It’s as if Mother Nature was dealing her arrogant, hubristic children a severe “time out.” We’ve been grounded until we learn our lesson.

Maybe she’s telling us to just stay home and count our blessings. Recently, I found this quote by a Bengali poet, Rabindranath Tagore:

“For many years, at great cost, I traveled through many countries, saw the high mountains, the oceans. The only things I did not see were the sparkling dewdrops in the grass just outside my door.”

As much as I miss traveling the world, I am enjoying this time at home. I’m enjoying my garden, my cats, my husband, and my friends. I’m savoring the late afternoon sun as it illuminates the Buddha fountain in the birch grove in my backyard. I’m time-traveling by reading old journals and looking at photos as I research my book.

Loving my garden, my husband, and my black cats (not necessarily in that order!)

Still, I long to return to Kenya, to see Grace, the young girl I sponsor in the remote town of Kajiado. To have sundowners with Richard Corcoran, a 3rd-generation Kenyan with a passion for conservation of his beloved lands. To listen to the stories told by Kamuti, a weathered former poacher who now works as a gardener at Kipalo Hills Safari Lodge. To race a wind-powered buggy across miles of empty sand dunes at low tide on the Tana River Delta. And I’ll make sure to take extra time to go to Uganda to see the Mountain Gorillas (high on my list!) and visit my friend, Karon Wright’s philanthropic project supporting hard-working women with micro-loans, literacy, and skills training.

And I yearn to return to the Sea of Cortez, where I’ll go glamping on a UNESCO-protected island off the coast of Baja. I’ll snorkel with sea lions and whale sharks. I’ll see blue-footed Boobies, Cormorants, and storks. And I’ll scratch the barnacles of baby Gray Whales as they are nudged toward the side of our 20-foot panga boat by their mamas, popping up to take a peek at the strange humans who giggle in disbelief and fumble with their cameras trying to capture the amazing spectacle.

And I dream of replicating an unforgettable philanthropic journey to Vietnam, where we visited single mothers who were recipients of micro-loans from a non-profit called Children of Vietnam. With just a few hundred dollars (a loan which will be repaid), these proud women were now seamstresses, hairdressers, or fruit-sellers in the market and were using their income to send their kids to school. In addition to the poignant moments with these ladies, we had great fun riding rickshaws in Hanoi, cruising through the gorgeous waters of Halong Bay, learning to cook Vietnamese specialties, and hilariously trying to steer a round wicker boat in Hoi An.

(Is it obvious that I’m ready and raring to dust off my passport?)

Yes, I will enjoy my garden. And the kitties. And I’ll look for sparkling dewdrops is the grass. For now.

But when the world opens up again – I’ll be one of the first to go!

I hope you will, too.