The Art of Travel
BY HEiDI PRAHL
Lover of Jesus, my family, really good coffee, and all things Chicago. I’m a living, breathing paradox.
I grew up dreaming of becoming a flight attendant. Our family often traveled with my dad on business trips. Even at a young age, I understood the magic of travel. Something about strapping yourself into a seat in one place and a few hours later unstrapping somewhere completely new had me fascinated. Stepping off a plane into places unknown with people who didn’t always look like me, new foods, accents I’d never heard, tall buildings, mountains, or trains and taxis brought an energy that gave me life in ways I didn’t quite understand. But I was hooked.
Suffice it to say, I didn’t become a flight attendant, but I never lost my taste for wanderlust. I didn’t just want to travel; I wanted to go somewhere and become part of it, even if for a short period of time.
These days my husband and I try to schedule several short trips each year. I’m not that little girl anymore, but I still dream of traveling and being immersed in as many new experiences as possible.
Because it’s often difficult for my husband to get away for a full week and because, while I love to travel, I’m also a homebody at heart, we’ve discovered that short, 3-4 day trips, is where the magic happens.
I’m no travel guru and won’t pretend to be able to give you my top 10 travel tips, but I will share with you some stories, hopefully inspiring you in your own journeys.
It’s never my goal to simply see a place to check it off my list. My prayer is not just that we get to travel, but we get to travel well. And by that I mean that I want to experience a place in a way that really connects with my heart; in ways that connect my husband and I not only to each other but to the places we go.
Something that tends to really connect us with a place is simply walking instead of driving. Holding hands, walking down the sidewalk from our hotel to dinner tends to make it a lot more personal than driving, parking, eating dinner, and then driving away again. It sounds simple, but my heart remembers the streets we’ve walked, how the sun hit the storefronts we passed, the street performers we’ve seen, and the smells of local cuisine.
One of our favorite things is finding local donut shops. It’s an extra special treat if we can walk there at night—the streets tend to be alive in a completely different way at night. You’ll never forget a late night donut in a strange new city.
Daytime donut trips can be fun, too. Early one morning in Marina del Rey, we located a donut shop about a mile away. We put on our shoes and headed out. On a map, you don’t always know what kind of area you’ll be walking through, and this particular morning led us into a neighborhood that surprised both of us. It was a stark contrast to the beautiful marina we were staying, not so far away—a little more raw and edgy. It felt like it mattered. I have a deep belief in the importance of not just seeing the polished tourist areas of any given place. In the end, we had some of the best donuts we’ve ever had from a place that turned out to be part donut shop, part convenience store. So unexpected, yet so memorable.
Another tip: don’t forget to look up. The sky will connect you with a place like nothing else. I’ll never forget a night in Sedona where late one evening we ventured outside in our pj’s to peek at the night sky. We were literally awestruck with the star-painted sky. It was almost dizzying. Neither of us had ever seen anything like it and we will never forget it. Had we decided that it was too late we would have missed out on one of our favorite experiences ever.
Another way to really connect with a place is to be open to what is happening in the moment. We went to Sedona to experience the energy vortexes, but I don’t think either of us really knew what that meant. While all of Sedona is considered a vortex, there are spots where the energy is said to crackle more intensely, each radiating its own unique energy. It wasn’t until we climbed the Red Rocks at each location that we were able to experience it in our own bodies and get a glimpse of the absolute magic we were experiencing. We went in not knowing what to expect but quickly found ourselves participating in a healing sound bath meditation atop one vortex site, being led up the side of the rocks to the sound of a pan flute being played at the top of another, crossing paths with a javelina on a trail to yet another site, and an encounter with a mystery man at another vortex site. He was descending the rocks as we were headed up. He walked over to us and handed us each a heart shaped rock, saying he wanted to give us these gifts from Mother Earth. He finished by saying in the end love was all that mattered, and with that, he was gone. But his gift (and that memory) are dear to our hearts.
I think of travel as one of life’s greatest teachers. You learn and experience things in ways you couldn’t otherwise. These are just a few of our stories, but I like to think travel changes you. It changes your heart. You look back on the streets you walked, and you now have history there. You leave a little piece of your heart behind, but in return, you replace it with these tiny pieces you’ve collected of new experiences, memories and perspectives. Money will come and go, but the person you will become through travel is absolutely priceless.