Igniting my Wanderlust

For the past couple of weeks, I have been absorbed in travel books. Not only the Fodors and Lonely Planet type guidebooks, but tales of travel and adventure.

It all started with Long Way Down. Dreamy Ewan McGregor teamed with buddy Charley Boorman on a motorcycle journey from the top of Scotland to the tip of Africa. I'm anxiously awaiting the release of the DVD of their trip since the pictures in the book seem like a small teaser. I want to see more of what they experienced.

My next read was The Unsavvy Traveler: Women's Comic Tales of Catastrophe. Even the worst catastrophes described could not put me off thoughts of travel.

But the book that really ignited the fire was Into the Light by Dave and Jaja Martin. This was the story of a family of five who lived full time on their sailboat. They had pretty much experienced all the tropical destinations and decided to set out on a 3 - 5 year journey starting in Iceland. The book begins with them leaving Bermuda and takes us through 3 years of their life in the Arctic, living aboard a sailboat and the wonderful people they meet in their journey. Good times and tough times, it all sounded magical.

This got me thinking (which is always a wee bit scary for my poor husband). Now, the Arctic living did not appeal to me so much, especially at the end of winter when I am sick and tired of being cold and seeing snow. However, I could manage to spend a few years traveling to some of the less icy places on Earth.

I love to travel. I'm usually disappointed when it's time to go home after a trip since it never feels long enough (Except for camping, in which case I am counting down the minutes until I no longer have to sleep on the ground in a nylon sauna). But the beauty is, you can't get homesick because your home comes with you on your travels.

How great it would be to live on a sailboat! 360 degrees of oceanfront with the world as your backyard. Also makes it easy to move away from irritating neighbours - just pull up anchor and move somewhere else! It embraces the concept of simple living because with so little space, you really begin to evaluate your necessities (couldn't we do that in a yurt? my poor husband wonders).

When I mentioned this to R, he brought up the fact that we don't know how to sail. Tiny, insignificant detail in my mind. And the fact that I spent most of my summers on boats when I was young, well, I'm fairly sure some of how to sail must be embedded in my subconscious. But I did come up with a simple, 3-step plan for how to accomplish this lifestyle.

1 - Buy sailboat

2 - Learn to sail

3 - Sail around the world.

Simple, eh?!

This year, I'm looking forward to some tentatively planned trips we hope to make but I am going to keep researching the sailing life. For what is life, if not a great adventure.