23 Comments

Love the bug imagery! I’ve travelled to a handful of countries and I can appreciate your lust for roaming and experiencing. A beach is just a beach like the ones pretty much everywhere…and a tourist town is pretty much the same as the ones in the country you just left. Any traveller who has only seen beaches and tourist towns has not truly travelled at all…..

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You would have been a GREAT sidekick on my treks of the past. What you just said is exactly the reason I wrote my travel blog for so long....to teach people there IS a whole different way to experience a vacation destination!

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Some people don’t care enough about the destination. It’s is enough for them that they are removed from their mundane reality. They are too interested in themselves to really look at what is around them. It’s been a few decades since I’ve truly traveled….cruises don’t count….lol

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I'm more scared of cruises than I am of being stranded alone in wild Jamaica 😂

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Lmao! Nit sure I’m in agreement there but I was in the Navy for several years so I am at peace with the waves rocking me to sleep and nothing to see for miles but sea and stars.

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It's the people I'm afraid of 🤣🤣 I go on holiday to get away from humans.

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I get that. I used to say people suck…that isn’t quite true but there are enough that do that it seems that way sometimes. My family had property in an island in California. Bradford island in the San Joaquin Delta. It’s huge. On any given day there may have been 20 people spread over 1000’s of acres. I was just a kid but was free to just roam, explore and dream.

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"It fascinates me that no matter how important we think we are in our own world, each of us holds very little significance in the bigger picture."

We matter little, to others and to broader events in general. We should just strive to find our place and live our lives - for ourselves, because no one else really cares.

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I cannot count how many times I have sat down with kids tormenting bugs and just asked, “I wonder if that bug has a family? what do you think?” I am very forgiving of bugs in my home, except for cockroaches and venomous centipedes. They all must die.

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Hahaha Steve, same here! Whenever possible, I catch them and release them outside. But NOT the ones that can do harm! Or ones that are especially ugly that I can't bear to catch because they're ugly.

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I do that with huntsman spiders. Big hairy things. They look ugly but they are the only non venomous spider here in Australia.

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I've seen pics of those spiders and I'm not sure I could get close enough to ever catch and release one! Spiders make my skin crawl 😂

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Wuss. I just put a glass over them then slide a sheet of paper or card between the wall and the open end of the glass. That traps them inside the glass so I can just walk them outside and drop them in the garden

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That's how I do with other insects. But I have no problem admitting I'm a wuss when it comes to spiders 😁

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I'm OK with spidders (not a typo here. Its what my now 50yo son called them way back when). Wasps not so much

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I'm sure that this is much to my family's chagrin, but while camping I've started just taking hikes without my husband and kids when everyone else is acting uninterested. I want the exercise and I want to take pictures at my own pace. They have been wonderfully quiet moments of just being out in nature. I've even stopped listening to my headphones while on those hikes, because I really just want to focus on the task at hand.

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I love this!! I do the same thing...no headphones. It just helps to be more present. My dog is what made me change the way I walk and enjoy nature. I adopted her during Covid and she's got lots of anxiety so I have to be alert and aware of our surroundings. Turns out, that is the key to actually LOVING my surroundings!

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This is something I warn potential travellers about - people will only be mildly interested in your trip while you're gone, and will barely want to hear about it when you return.

But that's good, it means we can do whatever weird or nerdy things we like because no-one cares either way.

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I think that's true in general. Everything is very fleeting. In my case, everyone wanted to hear about it because I wrote my destination blog for 10 years! However, when I retired it and sold it...again...fleeting. They're following the next person now 😁

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I too have existential disturbance when watching a bug get stuck to the windshield and transported to another realm when the light changes. So you're not alone in that — unless you're out in the middle of an uncharted forest where you have no cell service and nobody knows where you are. You're a far more intrepid traveler than I am!

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Jan! I swear you are my spirit animal lol. I didn't think anyone else in the world would have those thoughts about displaced insects 😂😂

And funny you mentioned out in the woods with no cell service because that is next week's newsletter. I think you'll enjoy it.

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I have no doubt I will! And I'm honored to be your spirit animal.

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Sep 13, 2023
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I suppose I can get philosophical at times!

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