1st-quarter: 3rd-month and 10 to go (2012)
29 March 2012.
Three months have passed.
It’s been simply unbelievable how quickly these last three months have gone, and it was nine months when I made my announcement.
From mid-December: belongings packed and shipped. Ended my job at an astronomical observatory in Chile. Ended my time in astronomy. Left Chile to return to North America.
Since the end of December, I have visited the Bay Area, Vancouver, Victoria, the Big Island of Hawaii, Seattle, Santa Monica, Pasadena, Mexico City, back to the Bay Area, northwest Arkansas, and now as I write, Houston.
That’s a lot of distance for the first 12 weeks of 2012.
| Route | Distance | Method |
|---|---|---|
| SFO–LAX–YVR | 1418 mi | Alaska Airlines |
| YVR–SEA–HNL–ITO (return) | 6040 mi | Alaska, Hawaiian Airlines |
| Vancouver–Seattle | 127 mi | Amtrak Cascades |
| SEA–LAX | 954 mi | Alaska Airlines |
| LAX–MEX | 1553 mi | Alaska Airlines |
| MEX–DFW–SJC | 2374 mi | American Airlines |
| SFO–DFW–XNA | 1745 mi | American Airlines |
| XNA–DFW–IAH | 505 mi | American Airlines |
| Total, as of this post | 14716 mi (23680 km) | … |
Until the end of April, I have Toronto; Minneapolis; Washington, DC; and Baltimore remaining on the docket.
Fortunately, I’ve been able to use frequent-flyer miles for all intracontinental flights within North America, which will be the subject for a future post.
As I’ve often been asked, I’m no closer to figuring out what I want to do at the end of this RTW journey, or figuring out where I want to live.
But I am “auditioning” every place I’m visiting along the way.
So, it’s one-quarter done, and three more to go.
That’s at least nine months remaining.
I’d like to think I can keep going.
By great fortune, I went back to Jodi Ettenberg’s Legal Nomads website, and in particular to two posts: The Limits of Long-Term Travel, and On Homesickness and Long-Term Travel. As I’ve been contemplating for some time, she elucidates these ideas, thoughts, and emotions far more eloquently than I can have ever imagined.
The calendar excerpt is taken from cozi.com. The next two photos are from Flickr, and are made by M.Toyama and marie-ll, respectively. This post is published originally on Fotoeins Fotopress (fotoeins.com).
Fotoeins Fotografie 
3 Responses to “1st-quarter: 3rd-month and 10 to go (2012)”
What an adventure Henry!!!! Super exciting!!! Keep it up!!! 🙂 **
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Thanks, Xandré – I appreciate it! The whole experience has been great and exciting thus far, despite some initial signs of some travel fatigue. 🙂
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It’s amazing and impressive that it’s been three months! You are indeed wracking up the miles 🙂
Once you leave the mainland, I know your jumps become longer stretches. I hope that the month in the Bahamas, for instance, will help with the fatigue. I’m sure you’ll have plenty of side trips, but a “home base” might be nice.
If that doesn’t resolve your mild fatigue, parking it with your sister in Hong Kong for a while may. I swear, there is something siblings can do for us that no one else can. I get along with my brother and I know that you do with your sister, but even siblings that don’t have peaceful relationships hold sway over each other. Perhaps it’s simply that they have known us for our whole lives. My brother, without having to say much, reminds me of who I am – the core of my personality that really hasn’t changed much in 30+ years. I remember that having my brother visit me in Chile significantly lessened my homesickness my first year abroad. So I hope you will be fully recharged and ready for more adventures after being in HK 🙂
Anyway, I liked what the other bloggers you mentioned had to say about travel fatigue, etc, but one day I hope you will actually take the jump and say what YOU have to say, despite your perception of other people having said it already. There is a great deal of power in our own words and a value in recognizing that the ones we chose and the way we arrange them defines a perspective that is unique, even if the underlying sentiment is not.
Of course, that is coming from a poet 🙂
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