The Gift of Travel....

"We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open."

 Jawaharal Nehru

“The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are”

Samuel Johnson

“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware”

Martin Buber

"When you travel, it’s not like you take a part of each place away with you;

Rather, it’s as if you leave a part of yourself there, like a part of you forever belongs to that place – the time, the people, and the things you saw; and over time, it gets burned deeper into your soul. You eternally belong to it"

Anon

"Why I travel: to learn and grow, to challenge myself, stretch my limits and foster an appreciation of both the world at large and the chair waiting in front of the woodstove back home"

Tim Patterson

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Mark Twain

“If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home”

James Michener

“Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quiestest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey”

Pat Conroy

“Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.”

Mark Jenkins

“I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list”

Susan Sontag

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page”

St. Augustine

“When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money”

Susan Heller

“The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.”

G. K.Chesterton

"To get away from one's working environment is, in a sense, to get away from one's self; and this is often the chief advantage of travel and change"

Charles Horton Cooley

"Our happiest moments as tourists always seem to come when we stumble upon one thing while in pursuit of something else."

Lawrence Block

"Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living"

Miriam Beard

My parents are not travellers, we spent all my childhood holidays in Wales and my mother still hasn't flown anywhere....I was 11 when I first went to France (just for a school daytrip)....and probably about 14 when I had my first overseas holiday....

I love to travel....love the planning, packing, arrival at the airport, the first day at the new destination....I am a put-your-bags-down-and-head-straight-for-the beach/shops/dinner kind of a girl, I never like to waste a minute. I love to wander, browse, explore....I am not even a photographer really....enjoying just sitting in a cafe watching and absorbing....I really like to feel the atmosphere and blend in....really seeing things and people watching....we nearly always rent apartments, as opposed to staying in hotels, I love to shop at local markets and pretend I am a local, for however short a time....

Some of my favourite holiday moments....a private beach in Antigua where literally we couldn't see or hear a single person all day....Sunday afternoons cycling in Central Park, NYC.....sailing on the Maid of the Mist right up close to Niagara Falls....St Peter's Square, Rome at 1am, just myself and two other girlfriends....Venice in the November mist....the view from the top of the Arc du Triomphe, Paris....the incredible view over the Med high up from Eze in the south of France....seeing the beautiful old buildings in San Juan, Puerto Rico....

Most of my holidays have been planned, I haven't done any really long backpacking trips or been in any scary situations....the furthest I have been from England is probably the Caribbean....

I have travelled by myself but only in America and in France for a short time....reading "Eat, Pray, Love" has made me really admire anyone who can decide to pretty much leave their life and just go....it has also made me tempted to travel somewhere like India....both my brothers have spent quite a bit of time there and loved it....I should have visited when they did!

One of the quotes I like most from those above is that when you travel you not only bring something home with you, but you leave part of yourself there....once visited, a place does become a part of you and stays with you....and I love that....travel is such a gift.

I love too that you can travel at any age, after all you are never really going to run out of places are you? One thing I want for my children (who have already seen quite a bit of Europe) most of all is for them to travel and see the world (as long as they eventually return to London of course!)...and maybe I might just join them!!

Happy Monday!!