Nora Dunn over at The Professional Hobo is doing a series profiling a week in the life of long-term travelers.  She asked me to contribute a post to the series.  Check it out:

A Week in the Life of Sue: Road Schooled

After you read about how much I cram into a week on the road you’ll understand why I haven’t posted this week.  The past week I was traveling from the Seattle area where I spent the summer to the San Francisco Bay area which is my base camp for the foreseeable future. Therefore I haven’t had much time to blog.

I travel fast.  I like it that way because when I slow down I get bored and antsy.  But I don’t recommend traveling as fast as I do for most people.

As a matter of fact one of the pieces of advice I would give to a newbie long-term travelers is to slow down and try not to cram in too much.  And if you want to travel fast like I do, pick a few places to stay more than a day.  In my case for the week in the life post I was traveling fast for a week, but I started at Padre Island National Seashore where I had been camping on the beach for 6 weeks and ended at the Grand Canyon where I camped for about a week (for free!).

The week in my life that took me from Padre Island to the Grand Canyon was in April.  In the 4 months since then I have traversed the Pacific coast from San Diego, California to Vancouver, British Columbia with weeks long pit stops in Santa Cruz, Portland, and Seattle.

And now I’m in the Bay area writing this post from a coffee shop in San Rafael.    A year ago San Rafael was a pit stop.  I lived here for two months last summer.  In the year that has passed not much has changed in San Rafael.  But I have changed a lot.

A year in life of Sue post may read a bit differently than my week in the life post.  The past year was one of the best and worst years of my life.  And now life has come completely full circle and I’m sitting here writing this post in a coffee shop where I sat a year ago.  Everything looks the same yet totally different. Traveling changed my perspective.

I wonder what life will look like a year from now after spending a year living in the same place.

San Juan Islands by Air

San Juan Islands by Ferry

San Juan Islands by Foot

When I was flying over the San Juan Islands I had no clue I would walk through a sculpture garden with a dragonfly in flight.  From the air I grasped the big picture of the islands but had no conception of the details hiding beneath the tree canopies.  And on land I discovered  some intricate details of the San Juans but missed the big picture of the layout of the islands.  If I had been dropped off in the the sculpture garden with a blindfold on I wouldn’t even have known I was on an island.

One of the things I love about travel is that it provides a different perspective.  But at the same time you can gain a different perspective of your own neighborhood just by looking at it in a different way.  Maybe by taking a different mode of transport – walking instead of driving or taking the bus.  Or maybe just by talking to the guy on the street that you pass everyday.

At one time in my life I aspired to see the San Juan Islands.  But now that I have seen the San Juan Islands by air, ferry, and foot,  I aspire to look at the familiar places in my life from the multiple perspectives I take when traveling.  By looking at the familiar from multiple perspectives new worlds open up and the disparate becomes connected.