Save your fivers

All my working life I have put coins in jars and fivers in a drawer.  Every five dollar note that I touch is saved and I have jars of coins sitting in the corner waiting to be cashed in.  And they are all cashed in when I begin to take my annual leave. And leave I do.

All  my working life I have had a plan to travel ahead of me. I am a restless soul. And I fret unless there is a ticket to Somewhere in my travel bag. Or when the children were smaller: a car ready to be packed full of kids and food and the dog and a plan and off we would go. It does not have to be exotic but it is not a question of IF I travel it is a question of WHEN. This is something I know about myself.

It is like always having another book to read. If I am getting close to the end of a book and have not got the next one aleady lined up and in sight, my reading self gets very nervous.

It is the same with travel. I cannot settle to the now, unless I know where I am going next, even if it is planned months and sometimes years ahead. I need to see an open door in front of me.  To fight this need in me would be to invite madness and a life of simmering misery. Not only would I be unhappy but I would make everyone else unhappy too. I know this about myself, and those who know me know this about me too so I go without many things so I can travel. This year my children are shouting me a night of accomodation each on my travel, somewhere amazing and as yet unrevealed. They know this about me too.

My trips are not expensive. After all, I earn very little cash in my present  job as a farmer and using chickens to pay for plane tickets is frowned upon!  So I have to be clever in my planning. There are always cheap flights to somewhere. Always cheap places to stay. And LOTS to see!

Each trip is planned in detail – this is Part One of the therapy of travel.  The planning keeps me company during the long quiet hours. I found a stupidly cheap ticket to London early in the summer this year so step one for me was to borrow the money from the credit card to buy that and then pay it off.  ($560 return – Chicago to London to Chicago- crazy cheap!)

Then saving some more for food and a place to stay (always with a kitchen).    Food and accomodation are always saved into different envelopes (all those fivers and coins).   I take my time but I am always saving. (And yes, I am still sitting in that old chair!)

The farm is also planned and organised so everyone will be in a winter holding pattern so it can be managed easily by Jake and John (John does not work in the winters and has absolutely no desire at all to travel anywhere).

Here is my travel list for this winter. Christmas Day in Canada (using points), London (and an exciting, yet to be revealed destination, from there) will be in February  and early in the spring- California. Each trip is quite short – I cannot leave the farm for long.

I am happily in the planning stages now!

Travel is my secret life I suppose!  This is how I deal with my itchy feet and months and months never leaving the farm.  I am still saving my fivers for food on my Europe trip.

I hope you have a lovely day.

Love celi