How do you plan your vacations?
I need to tell you a secret: I rather hope to never fully plan one again. And by this I mean: I book the plane tickets, the place to stay, the rental car, or whatever needs to happen to get there and have a comfortable spot to sleep and be able to get around. And then maybe decide one or two things to do. That’s it. That’s all the planning I want to commit to.
Because there were two things I took away from getting away this past weekend, and neither one had anything to do with where we went.
But I read the blog posts, searched for the Pinterest pins, stalked #poppiesfest to see if there were any signs of a bloom more recent than 2020, and felt a little bit of FOMO over the fact that I didn’t even have a desire to do ALL of the things we possibly could do. To eat at all of the best restaurants, see of all the sights, visit all of the places. Or take all of the pictures like the influencers do, wearing dresses that flow in the breeze beneath a wide brimmed hat – selling a romanticized ideal of how things could look if every moment were sunset at a resort. I’ve tried that, and each time, I felt disappointed because I couldn’t make photos that look perfect and capture the authentic experience.
This is why I can’t write you a travel guide for El Paso, or for Las Cruces, or White Sands or the Franklin Mountains.
If you want to know what we did do it was this:
slept in, walked the dog around
the historic neighborhood we stayed in,
admired the diversity of houses,
got brunch, got groceries
(a rotisserie chicken fed us for the weekend),
read books, took naps
waited until the afternoon to even decide what to do based on the weather,
drove 90 minutes to White Sands, rode a sled down the dunes
(it’s not the same as snow sledding, no matter what anyone tells you)
stayed not long enough: the wind blew sand in our eyes and bodies needed to be fed
drove off into a desert sunset with the windows down
listened to podcasts, paused them to have real conversation
missed a turn or two and drove over the mountain three times
gave the dog treats from the table at every meal
got turned away from a sunset hike, found a different path
and turned around anyway when it felt like the wind would blow us off the mountain
watched the lights of Juarez twinkle on in front of the sun setting over the mountains
with the second story patio door open
did a puzzle on the dining room table
used a stranger’s Amazon account to watch Daisy Jones and the Six
fell asleep under a fluffy duvet
(while deeply missing my weighted blanket)
had time to hike part of the Tin Mines trail, wore out the dog
ate the remnants of the chicken from a plastic yogurt container as a post-hike snack
and found the only patch of wild Mexican poppies beneath the Franklin Mountains
before we took a plane ride back home
Underneath the question of how was your trip, I hope, is really this: did you get to do what you really wanted? What I learned on this trip is that what I truly want when I travel is to step out of the routine and into my intuition, letting my body decide when and where I go, and what I do. Maybe it’s boring to visit a local grocery store rather than eat out at restaurants, but I love letting my body push the cart toward what looks good in the moments I’m there, picking out fresh fruit that I know would go bad before I ate it if I were at home, choosing ease and simplicity and taste – my senses – above all else. I love being able to wake up and have time for a morning nap or snuggling the dog after breakfast without the pressure of having to get on to the next thing. Not having to rush when the weather or the park rangers won’t cooperate because there will be a second chance and having the freedom to leave when my human body demands food or rest feel like gifts to myself, a type of listening without judgement about how much I actually cross off the list or if something was worth it. This was the first thing I took away from this trip: that to feel free while I’m traveling, I need about an 80/20 blend of rest and adventure, in that order. This is what lets it feel intuitive, which is what I crave above all else.
Noticing this was what made the second thing I’m holding on to stick in my brain. There was a lovely sentence from this podcast that we listened to on the way to White Sands that now lives rent free in my head: Humans are feeling beings who think. Not the opposite, thinking beings who feel. This is the magic of being on vacation, that there is time to feel, to lean into what feels like the next thing that I want to do. I got this wrong for so many years. There were trips that felt stressful because I thought they needed to be productive, which is what happens when I think before I feel. Productivity looked like pressure to take perfect photos, ones that I could use as content for social media or the print shop, or could turn into a travel guide or…or…or. But these days, I only want to take photos if it feels fun, or if the light and colors and scenes spark something joyful in me, which is very much a sense and one that I can’t feel under pressure. I’ve learned that I have no interest in influencing anyone to go somewhere or do something or buy anything, in service of monetizing every part of my life. I need to adventure to refuel, to get back in touch with my senses and with nature, and if I make something in the process, that’s simply a delightful extra.
