Travel Prep is Hard Work

Isn’t the idea of travel enchanting? Picture yourself strolling cobblestone steps in an ancient city, looking out over a brilliant orange sky as the sun sinks into the sea...

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This has always been my vision of travel. Romanticized, captivating, even a bit glamorous; simply purchase a ticket, pack your bags, and live in the moment. The pre-trip planning, organizing, and overall effort never factored into my thoughts. Now I know better. Anyone that has simply booked a flight one day and departed for adventure the next boggles my mind. Honestly I won’t even believe it’s possible until I see it with my own eyes. 

 I’d like to think I’m not completely naïve about the travel process, as some preparations are obviously needed – an updated passport, any necessary vaccinations, savings and perhaps a new credit card – but I never expected the months leading up to our trip to be so exhausting; the annoying thing is that most of this pre-travel planning isn’t even trip related. If we were forced to read up on travel forums and guide books the excitement of planning our once-in-a-lifetime trip to Europe would easily trump any tiredness, late nights, or endless amounts of research, however besides some discussions on countries and cities we’d like to visit, and a bit of internet time perusing accommodation and transportation options, the majority of our time has been spent preparing to rent our house and store our belongings. 

Again, I was naïve and thought this would be a simple task. Merely find renters we trust, move everything out, and couch surf for a couple months until our departure date while simultaneously having someone else pay our mortgage. Clearly I’ve repressed our experience two years earlier when we moved into our house because moving is never that easy. Also, in two short years our belongings have somehow tripled. Either someone is sneaking into our house late at night to leave junk in closets and on shelves, or our furniture has figured our binary fission as a way to procreate – either way I’m not happy about it. 

Deciding which we could keep was the hardest part.

Goodbye lovely mauve...

And so here we are, attempting to vacate our house in less than two weeks and find storage for all of our belongings that cannot simply go back to where they came from. Quite a bit of these items, not making the cut, will find themselves on the shelves of our local thrift store, the rest are destined for a prolonged stay in a Rubbermaid bin. Since we aren’t quite sure what our living situation will be once we get home they may have to stay boxed up for quite some time.

Moving has been trying at times, tiring and stressful at others, but it has also been surprisingly sad. We are leaving our first home for the unknown, and as excited I am to explore another part of the world, I really don’t want to re-paint our guest bedroom - I love the mauve walls very much, just as they are.

We hope our home will be as comforting for its new inhabitants as it was for us, and perhaps one day we can be together again. Until then we’ve got a bathroom fan to fix, thirteen Rubbermaid bins to move, and too much cleaning to do. After all of this we will definitely need a vacation.

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