Travel and vacations are not the same
habitual travel is a mindset
Hi! I’m Jordan, and Shade Cactus is where being a cozy homebody and always planning your next travel adventure come to meet. Here, you’ll marvel the mundane and wish for your wild, while reveling in rest.
You’ll learn about how to support your habitual travel adventures alongside your happy home base (even the one inside your own head). Cool kids subscribe. I appreciate you!
What does it look like (or maybe more importantly, feel like) to travel habitually?
First, you must allow yourself to romanticize life. No experience is too small — no place is too fly-over — to travel habitually. Whether it’s a weekend getaway, a staycation, or a 2-week long road trip…
Travel is a mindset.
You must give in to earnestness.
Let’s take some time to align on definitions: there is travel, and there are vacations.
Vacations are a break. They’re an escape from the norm. They have a beginning and an end.
Travel is endless. Travel is an experience, one that takes you from moment to moment. Travel can happen anywhere, even in your own backyard (truly!)
And while both hold value, I’ve found in my priorities of freedom and curiosity that travel feeds me more. It’s how I uncover new ways to experience places I’ve been before. The travel mindset encourages me to chat with people around me, offering more opportunities to unearth what’s waiting for me to discover and share with others.
In a recent essay,
explained component analysis, “which is when you take a complex thing and break it down into its various parts for a greater and more nuanced understanding.”“For example, let’s say that you want to travel, but travel isn’t something you have the resources (time, money, etc) to do right now. Components analysis, as it was explained to me, invites you to clarify the specific aspects of travel that appeal to you, so that you can then see how else you might fulfill those underlying desires.”
Here’s where a travel mindset comes in! How can you fulfill your values and desire for travel in the here and now, while honoring the resources currently available to you?
Some ideas for habitual travel, requiring various levels of resources:
Tent camp in your backyard, and don’t forget the s’mores
Book a hotel a few towns over, and chat up locals at the downtown restaurant
Road trip for two weeks straight, stopping in the most random of places to take pictures, grab food, and simply look around you (don’t miss the National Parks along the way!)
Board the next flight at the airport, wherever it’s going (I’ve never actually done this, but ever since I saw it in the movie “Yes Man” I’ve always wanted to — and they went to Lincoln, NE!)
Get really comfortable car camping and save so much money going anywhere — last year, my husband and I set a goal to travel anywhere we wanted, but we couldn’t pay to stay there, so we car camped out of our Jeep!
Take yourself out on a date to your local coffee shop, library, or bar — romanticize the hell out of it
Habitual travel is how I’ve learned to honor my lust for wandering while being a walking contradiction who is also a total, cozy homebody. Each month, I create weekends and moments of travel in my life in some way or another — whether that’s road-tripping across the country or driving a couple of hours away for a night of camping.
This year, my husband and I bought our sprinter van (after saving for a year thanks to not paying to stay anywhere!) and are in the throws of converting it! It’s how we want to have our cake and eat it, too. I want the happy home base near family and friends. And I want the constant (re: habitual) travel.
The travel mindset reminds you there is no wrong way to travel — it’s all an exploration.
Plus, I love to share it! Creating travel itineraries for my friends and family is my love language (whether I’m heading out with them or not).
Habitual travel is how I honor my values by organizing my life around travel, not the other way around.
If you’re new here…
Hi! I’m Jordan, and Shade Cactus is where being a homebody and always planning your next travel adventure come to meet. It’s a travel blog / poetry newsletter / attempt to understand my inner world a bit better each day.
Subscribers can expect weekly-ish newsletters from me (and my forever undying gratitude!)
