I still remember the moment two years ago when I came up with the name for my travel blog. I was sitting in yoga class, letting my mind drift a bit in hopes of gaining some inspiration, and thinking about how for me, the whole point of travel and adventure was that it wasn’t a one-off experience but a continuous trend, a state of being. I wasn’t just a traveler, I was a voyager, if you will. An eternal voyager!
I thought the name was perfect. It acknowledged the permanence of my quest to explore as much of the world as I could. But as I reconsidered, “eternal” sounded a bit too serious, or flaky, depending on how you approached it. So instead, I went with “perpetual.” Perpetual voyager. Perpetual motion. Always moving forward, onto the next country, the next adventure, the next dream. That was me.
Until this year.
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you may have noticed that I haven’t posted anything here in months. If you know me well, you can probably guess why. This past spring I got hit by a powerful jolt of news I wasn’t expecting, regarding that most precious and important aspect of life that we all too often take for granted: my health. Having always been a robustly healthy person who worked out three times a week, walked 10,000 steps a day just to get to work, squeezed myself into coach seats for twenty-hour flights without a second thought and visited the doctor’s office once a year, it has definitely been a challenging transition and has turned my life upside down in a lot of ways.
Still, in many respects, I am fortunate. Early diagnosis caught my affliction before it went too far, and my long-term prognosis is excellent. I have amazing doctors, a supportive employer, and wonderful family and friends. Even without meaning to, this year of mostly unmitigated awfulness has shown me how fortunate I really am. Despite all that I’ve gone through over the past few months, I’m very, very grateful for that.
If all goes well, I’m hopeful that soon 2017 and all its awfulness will just be a blip on my radar screen. I’ll leave these difficult days in the past, recover physically and mentally, and get back to my real life, the one I’m supposed to be living right now—the one that involves traveling to far-flung places and having magical experiences in new cities and cultures, then coming home to write blog posts and relive the greatest hits on Instagram with a selection of my favorite photos.
But in the meantime, I’m sort of stuck. It’s the way it has to be, for now—weekly medical treatments have kept me pretty tethered to my hometown for the past few months. I haven’t been out of the country since I came home from Slovenia and Croatia a year ago. (In fact, Facebook memories helpfully reminded me today that exactly one year ago I was chasing waterfalls in Plitvice national park in Croatia…how quickly life can turn around!)
Plitvice waterfalls, Croatia
My other travel plans this year all fell by the wayside once I got my diagnosis back in May. (And if I may say so myself, these were some excellent plans). No safari in Kenya with my coworkers after our annual meeting in Nairobi in June. No dream trip to cruise Scandinavia and Russia (the one I’d been longing to make happen for close to a decade). Instead this summer was filled with doctor’s appointments, hospital visits, and a lot of time on my hands to think about the endless list of places I’d rather be.
But, there’s hope on the horizon! By the end of this year I’ll be mostly done with my course of treatment, and by winter I should be able to travel again pretty much without restriction. I already have big, big plans for the first trip I want to take in 2018…but having learned the hard way that life doesn’t always work out the way we expect it to, I want to hold off on sharing details until I actually have plane tickets in hand. Stay tuned….
And in the meantime, I want to get back to blogging. I didn’t post anything for the past few months mostly because it didn’t seem worth it—what was I going to write about? I wasn’t going anywhere interesting or doing anything beyond my work-and-medical appointment routine. But I also think that maybe, my lack of presence on my blog was also a form of denial. I didn’t want to put down in words what I was experiencing any more often than I had to. And while I still don’t want to write about the things that have kept me grounded in reality this year, I do want to begin anticipating the day when I’ll be able to take flight again. Because it’s never too early to get excited about the next adventure on the horizon—in fact, sometimes that’s all that keeps you going.
I also want to use this pause in my travels for another purpose—to reboot my blog a bit. I’ve always seen Perpetual Voyager as a hobby blog, and never wanted to make it into a full-time gig as many travel bloggers aspire to. I love travel blogs, but I already have a job and a career, and I wanted this site to remain something I do just for fun, and for myself—though of course, anyone else who chooses to is welcome to come along for the ride!
But now, I think my unplanned break from blogging has inspired me to re-dedicate myself to my blogging efforts. I want to post more frequently, write about travel in more in-depth and imaginative ways. I want to grow my audience, expand my community of readers. And you know, actually figure out the nuts and bolts of how to make a site look nice. (Looks do count, after all!)
And I do have a few small but exciting adventures coming up over the next few months close to home. I’m thrilled to have booked tickets for a Columbus Day weekend getaway to Philadelphia, a city I’ve visited before but really only scratched the surface of. I want to explore the museums, dig into the history of America’s founding days, and of course, check out the food and café scene in Philly. Only another month to go! And I’ll be sharing my impressions of the city here when I get back.
In late October I’ll be going to New York City for a work trip, which hopefully will include some time to catch up with NYC-based friends and family and try out some new restaurants (as well as make it back to the home of the world’s most magical milkshakes, obviously!)
Then in December I’ll be visiting my family in Florida for Christmas. It’s been months since I’ve seen them, though we talk every day, and I can’t wait to spend some quality in-person time with Mom and Dad, ending a difficult year on a high note.
And then, on to 2018…which, if I have my way, will be filled with nothing short of epic travel adventures.
Angkor Wat, Cambodia.
When my doctor and I first met to discuss my course of treatment a few months ago, I had many questions, both big and small. But one of the most pressing for me was when I’d be able to travel again. I mentioned my now-cancelled safari in Kenya, and asked if, in a year’s time, I’d be able to travel to such distant places again. I’ll never forget her words: “A year from now, you’ll go back to Kenya…and you can take me with you!”
Those words were such a relief to hear at the time, and even today, they still make me smile and give me hope. Hope that my life as a perpetual voyager will continue, and that I’ll soon be back out in the world I love so fiercely, conquering mountains and chasing waterfalls and living this glorious life to its fullest.
And until then, I’ll keep writing. Thanks for reading.