Welcome to budget travel…intentions?

Many people love to travel and there is no shortage of guidebooks, information, travel blogs, or news to get us to where we want to go.  The internet, travel agents, and travel TV shows are great resources for people to plan their next trip.  However, is our next trip just about the Italian villa, the family beach vacation, or a road trip to Yosemite?  While many people love to travel, the real question may not be as much about the “where” as the “why”.

So why do we travel?  There are the obvious answers to this question.  For some, business travel is a necessary part of life while others travel for pleasure.  Some enjoy nature, the outdoors, and adventure travel like camping, hiking, or rafting.  Others prefer relaxing beach vacations.  Some enjoy nice luggage and luxury hotels while others enjoy backpacking through Europe and sleeping in a hostel with people they don’t know.  Many enjoy big cities, guided tours, tour groups, and popular tourist destinations while others want to travel off the beaten path.

There are no wrong answers to the question and who we go with has an impact on our answers.  People travel with family, kids, friends, spouses, on tour groups, or solo.  And when the trip is finally over, we enjoy our photos, share our memories, and think about the things we saw and the places we went.

But is there something more to this question of why we travel?  Is traveling to France, Italy, Brazil, or Japan something we do to check off of our bucket list to say “I have been there”?  Is a vacation just a vacation?  Do we ever look back on our trips and think about things we learned or how our trips (for whatever purpose) have changed us?

Sometimes things go according to plan while other times they don’t.  We have memories and feelings that we associate with our good and bad experiences.  But travel is more than that.  Whenever we travel, we have the opportunity to take a look at life and the world around us.  Being intentional means we are aware of the things going on around us to see what we can learn.  And like our travel tastes and destinations, what we learn varies for each person.

Connecting with the places we travel to has to be intentional.  And the good thing is that being intentional is often free or costs less than traveling with an itinerary.  For me, budget travel and being intentional go hand-in-hand.

How I like to travel may be different from the way others choose. I don’t pretend to be an expert on travel but hope this blog is an opportunity to share ideas, encourage one another, and see how our intentional travel (whatever your motives and and destination) impacts each of us, our family and friends, and the world around us.

So enjoy that tour of Europe, the Caribbean cruise, trekking through New Zealand, camping in Yosemite, or relaxing at the beach.  Just be intentional about it.

How do you view travel? Is it intentional for you?