Skagway, Alaska
Photo Credit: Doree Weller
On a regular basis, I’m happiest at home, but I do like to travel to break me out of the rut. I like doing new things and seeing new places. I feel like it wakes my brain up and makes me more creative. When I go somewhere, I try to immerse myself in the experience, which can be difficult for me, as my default setting is, “Please don’t talk to me.”
It’s not that I hate people; it’s just that I mostly prefer my own company. I like to read and I like to make up stories about people. When people do inevitably talk to me (I have no idea why; I’m told I appear standoffish), I do enjoy hearing their stories.
My favorite thing about traveling is to see new scenery. I love landscapes and skies, trees and water. I love taking pictures of beautiful places, interesting buildings, and things that are broken and decaying. I love pictures of animals and paths. I love to look around at everything. I know I look like a tourist, but I don’t care.
Travel takes the ordinary and makes it extraordinary. I remember the first time I went to Arizona to visit, I was enamored with how huge the sky way. There was just so much of it, stretching in every direction. Before going there, I never knew you could see so much sky at one time. After 7 years of seeing it, I became numb to it. I no longer looked up in wonder every time I went outside. But then I traveled to Texas, and there were trees! Everywhere! I had grown up in Pennsylvania, so trees weren’t new to me, but after 7 years of no trees, they were new and exciting again. My eyes had missed the green.
Travel helps me to appreciate what I have, and to enjoy different things. While I admire people who do lots of traveling or do exciting things like backpack through Europe, it’s not for me. After a week being somewhere else, I’m ready to come home. Like Dorothy, I believe there’s no place like home.
Doree Weller 