Believe it or not, I am learning something in my retirement years … I am learning how to travel as a tourist, someone with no job-related pressure to keep me moving, on my toes and alert to issues around me.
During my nearly 37 years as a print journalist, I was able to travel to roughly two dozen countries. I recently compiled a list of the places I saw when I was a working stiff and I noticed that the vast majority of them either were related to my work or through my involvement with Rotary International.
My RI exposure took me to Denmark and Sweden in 2006 to attend an RI convention. In 2009, I had the high honor of leading an RI Group Study Exchange team through Israel. They all were busy and I had to be sharp damn near every day.
I was able to travel to Vietnam, Thailand, India, Cambodia and Mexico City on National Conference of Editorial Writers missions. Taiwan’s Government Info Office invited me five times to visit that country from 1989 to 2010.
Greece’s media office invited me three times to visit that country to look at its preparation for the 2004 Summer Olympics.
The best news of all of this is that my bride, Kathy Anne, was able to accompany me on many of these excursions. That didn’t reduce the obligations I had to maintain my media savvy.
This year I will have taken two trips to Europe. I went to Germany this past spring to visit dear friends in Nuremberg. I am about to leave for Greece for my fourth trip there; the Greece journey will be vastly different from my previous three trips to that spectacular nation.
The major difference? My wife is gone. I lost her to cancer in February 2023. The other difference is that I will be free to relax during my entire time in the land of my ancestors’ birth.
I’ll be able to relax! No pressure. No deadlines to keep. No stories I am required to write.
To be sure, I will be blogging daily from Greece, just as I did from Germany. I am learning, though, that this world of travel just to enjoy the sights, sounds and smells of an exotic land is a welcoming place.