Ten years ago today, I was at what may be the most beautiful place on earth I've visited so far: Lake Bled, Slovenia. What was the occasion? My 50th birthday. One half century on the planet.
I wanted to do something "big" for my 50th. You only get one of those (at most) per lifetime. I decided to take a trip to the land of my ethnic heritage, Croatia. I added Lake Bled, Slovenia, to the itinerary because (a) it looked beautiful in pictures and (b) I had a weird dream about it and thought I should check it out. The logistics of the trip put me in Bled on the occasion of the actual 50th.
And today is 10 years later to the very day.
I had taken only a couple of international trips before this, if you don't include Canada. (Calling Canada an "international" trip is like someone in Italy saying they've been to a foreign country because they went to the Vatican.) I used to think that I did not need to go out and see the rest of the world because there was plenty within the United States that I had not yet seen. But, by the time of my 50th, I had seen almost everything I wanted to see in the U.S., at least in the lower 48, and I thought I heard the rest of the world calling me. I've done at least one international trip a year in the past decade (and, in one, 2018, three!). You never know when the ability to travel is going to be taken away from you, whether because of finances, health, global economic collapse, or pandemics. I expect to be able to travel internationally (and within the good ol' U.S.A.) for many many more years. But there are no guarantees. So I plan accordingly.
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