The Silver Lining Of Pandemic Travel: Thinking Outside The Box & Discovering Gems
The past year plus has been a long, tedious dredge for most of us. Many of us did a little travel here and there during the pandemic but nothing near normal levels. Others didn’t feel comfortable traveling at all or tried to stay near home and revive the old school road trip. One thing was true for all of us, it wasn’t normal. Our travel patterns, our destinations, our travel goals, they were all outside our travel norms. Instead of lie flat beds and 5 star hotels we may have been renting a house and working remotely for a month, or hitting up small town USA for a week of relaxation and fun. I think there is some good that came out of that thought. It forced us to look outside our normal destinations and turn over every rock to find a hidden gem.
Breaking From The Norm
I have talked in the past about the group think that happens in miles and points, or travel as a whole. People tend to want to go to the same places, see and do the same things. There is a safety in that. The path has already been cut and it is easier to figure everything out. Booking a trip to Dublin, Rome, Hawaii, Mexico or Paris feels amazing and they are locations on many people’s bucket lists. Why is that though? Because they are beautiful, exciting and amazing? Sure. But a part of it is because you have seen trip reports, pictures on social media, the destinations in movies or on TV shows. It feels like you have already been there before you even go. There is a comfort in that. And that plays a huge role in the normal travel patterns we fall into. There is a reason most of people’s travel happens to go to the same places.
I think the pandemic flipped that notion on its head a bit. Hawaii was shut down, as was most of Europe and Asia etc. The tried and true destinations were cut off from us. That forced us to do some digging, to put in a little extra work. And I think many of us found some new places we had never considered before. I also think finding something many people have not experienced before has a magic to it. So hopefully everyone got a little taste of that and is searching for more of it.
My Own Experience
This isn’t to say you needed to discover something amazing or even go very far from home to achieve it. Just something new, something you had never considered before. I happened to do just that during the pandemic.
We have a trip booked to Hawaii to celebrate our 15 year anniversary. It was a trip both myself and my wife were looking very forward to. We were gonna spend a night in LA with some friends on the way out and do a Vanderpump bar hop. If you listen to the podcast then you probably get that reference 😂. But we of course had to cancel it.
I waited until a few weeks before to pull the cancellation trigger. Since we already had the time off we decided to scramble and find something on Airbnb to go to instead. I basically just searched for anything near the water in Michigan. I checked East Tawas, our normal summer destination, but couldn’t come up with anything good. That is when I stumbled on a house in Lexington, Michigan. We had stayed at the awesome Doubletree in nearby Port Huron but had never made the 15 minute trek north of there to Lexington.
The house looked awesome but we knew absolutely nothing about the area…we booked it any way. After the first day there we were in love with the area. Just for fun we pulled up Zillow to see what houses in the area went for. Our jaw dropped at some of the prices we were seeing and the fact that the houses in the immediate area all came with deeded beach access.
The Cottage Is Born
So for fun one morning we toured some homes with a realtor just to see. We were semi serious but this was like our second day ever in the area. We had long considered getting something in our beloved East Tawas but it was a 2 1/2 hour trek each way and the prices weren’t bad there, but they weren’t great either. Lexington is only a little over an hour away and it is all on the highway pretty much, a game changer.
We went back and forth during the rest of our trip. We checked out the downtown area, the park, ate at some restaurants and we just loved it all. So when we got home we put in an offer, and it was accepted! I have to say, almost a year later and we have no regrets. The ride has been bumpy for sure but every time we visit the area we fall in love all over again. It truly is special to us and I am so excited my kids get that experience throughout their childhood.
None of this would have been possible if it had not been for the pandemic though. We probably would have never visited the area or found the place that now feels so much like home. I guess that is a pretty big silver lining in all of this mess.
Final Thoughts
I know my story is not unique, I have heard similar stories from many people. They ended up thinking outside the box to find a place that inspired them again and filled that travel sized void in their soul. It could have been down the road or thousands of miles away but they found something new, something unexpected. I am grateful for this experience even though it was born out of something that was difficult. If you have lemons sometimes you just need to make lemonade, right?
Please share any places you discovered during the last year or so that you never would have otherwise. Let’s get that inspiration rolling!
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