The Logistics

We meet a lot of interesting people on these trips, not just the locals but other travelers, too.  Out of every nationality we have ever met, the Australians win the World Traveler Award, hands down.  A short vacation for them is one month.  A more typical vacation may be along the lines of 2-3 months.

Sign me up, matey.

It's easy to concentrate on all the positives of travel here on the post; the scenery, the food, the adventure, the sights, the people, and just the general experience of it all.  But there's a lot of logistics that goes into each trip we take.  In fact, we are able to fully enjoy our trips only because all these non-fun and non-exciting pieces are in place.  As much as we love to travel, I can understand why some people don't.  It's a lot of work.  Let's not even talk about how hard it is with kids.

For every lazy afternoon on the Adriatic, there is a five hour bus ride or a five hour layover in a third world airport.  Behind every luxurious sunset dinner is a month of setting aside money and a day of calculating currency conversions.

This trip alone has involved a staggering amount of busses and ferries.  The Africa trip involved flying somewhere about every 3 days---that's a lot of packing and unpacking, folks.  We have two more days of bliss, and then we fly to Zagreb, have a five hour layover, and fly to Munich.  We'll spend the night there and catch an early flight to Atlanta, where we will have a 3-4 hour layover, then the short three hour hop back to Denver, and the cab ride home.  We will drop our suitcases and turn around to go get Lucifer.  Then we will start the laundry, make a grocery run, and plan for the work week.

It's really all about the logistics.

For this reason, we are thinking that our next big vacation will be considerably simpler.  I think we will take a break from 11-hr flights and foreign languages and paying to use the bathroom and driving on the other side of the road and checking, double checking, triple checking the bus schedule.

This is not a complaint.  I spend a lot of time shaking my head at people who don't like to travel.  But as I konk out on the ferry, clutching my backpack for dear life and propping my legs up on my suitcase, I understand.

Then this happens and I forget all about it.