Why the two week trip matters

Vagablogging :: Rolf Potts Vagabonding Blog

A young friend of mine is posting elated pictures from Amsterdam, and two days later, from Dubai. She’s just graduated from Berklee School of Music in Boston, no slouch accomplishment, and she’s treating herself to a couple of weeks of travel. The joy in her journey is palpable in the photos she’s posting. Of course she’s meeting people who are on a three month walk about and proud of that, and folks 9 months into their gap year who are smug, but I think her two week foray is wonderful.

For lots of people, long term travel is something that grows slowly. The idea of vagabonding is a gentle unfolding that begins with a new backpack, a solid RTW ticket paid for up front and hotels in safe districts booked weeks in advance. For some folks, getting out of their state for two weeks is seriously outside the box and a grand scale adventure. Taking that first two week trip after college, or making the most of that precious vacation time is the definition of their wildest dream. It is in the living out loud of those small bites of freedom that their dreams grow, they meet people who stretch their paradigm and the door to the great big world swings wide.

We shouldn’t discourage, or deride the two week travelers. In fact, they should be applauded and encouraged whole heartedly. A months long, RTW journey isn’t the only way to travel in a way that is valuable to the soul. If more people would take that two weeks and do something that mattered, to them personally, or to an organization they believe in, or to folks they’ve never met but have read about on a blog they follow, the world would be a better place.

It is in those two week chunks that eyes are opened, compassion is developed, dreams are kindled, boxes are stretched, glass houses are shattered and kids who’ve grown into adults with no sense of themselves in the bigger picture are brought to their knees at the abject joy and wonder of the world and the commonalities that run like threads between humanity on every corner of the planet.

 If two weeks is all you’ve got, and a resort is the edge of your comfort zone, I say, “GO!” Do all you can do, and you’ll come back finding that you can actually do a little more. If you’re already vagabonding, come out in support of the “little guy” and celebrate every attempt to live in the world, every heart that dares to brave the unknown, and every adventure in the making. Two weeks matters, and it’s a hell of a lot better than nothing.

Original article can be found here: Why the two week trip matters