I ❤️ travelers! There’s so much to love about the Travelers’ Century Club. I love my Northern California chapter’s quarterly luncheons. I love Virtual Explorations and the breakout rooms that follow the presentation. I love our international and regional meetups. I love our new Travel Book Club! Most of all, I love travelers.
Travelers come in all shapes and sizes, all races and ethnicities. It doesn’t matter the size of your pocketbook or whether you travel to a place for three months or overnight. I don’t care whether you travel once a year or all the time. Whoever you are, I love travelers.
Travelers have a certain way of looking at the world; a certain curiosity that demands to know what’s around the corner, what’s beyond the headlines. By acquiring first-hand knowledge about a place and its people, travelers gain a unique perspective on the world and the issues that matter. I am reminded of TCC’s motto: World Travel: The passport to peace through understanding. True, the world seems torn at the moment. But having visited many of the hotspots during calmer times, I have a better understanding of the conflicts and their backstories.
For me, at least, leaving one’s safe zone and embarking on a journey is when self-discovery begins. I know things about myself and my ability to figure things out when plans fall apart because I’ve been thoroughly tested in this regard. Tourists panic; travelers persevere. Travelers figure out how to carry on and part of my strategy is reaching out to you and seeking your guidance thanks to TCC on WhatsApp.
Travelers have capabilities not shared by the public. Travelers can enter a hotel room and immediately assess the potential for doing laundry (and getting it dry). Travelers can operate any set of controls to turn on the water in a hotel’s shower no matter how obscure. Travelers can turn all the lights off in a hotel room even when it means unscrewing the bulb in the middle of the ceiling. Travelers can aim at the hole of a squat toilet and exit the washroom without comment. Travelers know these things.
Travelers respect the importance of time. Being on time means making connections, seeing the places you intend to visit and respecting your fellow travelers by not delaying them. Regarding time, travelers also have a higher level of patience than the public. Ticket counters may not open for several hours but travelers will wait patiently understanding that checking in to the next flight is the next step of the journey. Time between flights is time for rest, for planning, for catching up and for taking stock of one’s surroundings. This can be time well spent while others regard these hours as wasted.
Are you a planner? I strive to be a good planner not because I like it, but because I like to optimize my time while traveling. I like to hit the ground running so I can see and do as much as possible in the time available. When I leave a place, I like to feel that I saw what I came to see and learned what makes the place special. Planning the next trip is my favorite way to end a trip. Where will the next adventure take me and the one after that? These are characteristics of travelers.
I’ll conclude with a quote from Betty Knudson, a long-time TCC member from the NorCal Chapter: “Travel as much as you can for as long as you can.” I take her words to heart because I know that someday, I won’t be able to power walk from one terminal to the next, and I won’t be able to climb the 700 steps without shoes to see the temple at the top of the hill. But while I can and for as long as I can, I’m proud to be a traveler and I want to surround myself with all of you TCC members because “I ❤️ travelers.”
