Passionate about Travel

“Wherever you go, go with all your heart.” —Confucius 

Inside the Mind of a Travel Addict. A destination is advancing in my mind and getting my attention. On my way, at times without realizing I’ve started, or at least I don’t feel committed yet. All month, I ask everyone I know and everyone I meet about this destination. So am I going? By then, part of me knows I have decided already or I wouldn’t have bothered asking. Slowly, as though being surreptitious so as not to startle my consciousness, I start my inclination to read books and watch films about the destination, how it lives and who lives there. Still outwardly playing the undecided one, I am confident I will find something that officially peaks my interest. Once I determine there is just cause for my curiosity, something in my psyche snaps. Unable to help myself, I start studying travel books for days on end, and I could set my watch to the way I don’t notice my tea cup is empty until two o’clock in the morning.

Another few weeks of lost sleep goes by as the itinerary shrinks and expands and then goes off the charts. Segue into pouring over maps and counting vacation days to spare. A plan emerges! (And it needs to emerge three months prior to departure to get a better deal on plane tickets. Part of me is always calculating.) Shift into online mode to obtain plane tickets and travel insurance, to figure options in lodging, local transport and entertainment, and to book timed tickets to avoid lines at popular attractions. Two months out, I start studying the language; I plod through it, knowing this vocabulary will ultimately enhance my adventure. Focus and memorize; listen and repeat. With one month remaining, now is the time for an onslaught of effort in my day job so I can actually get away for a while. Just days away from take off, pack light and pack smart. It has all come together, and the bag zips! Now to remember to have fun.

“People seem to disapprove of my kind. I hear them quietly quip in a disapproving tone: ‘She is going away again?’ or ‘Why is she going there?’ But I pretend I don’t hear it. I may settle down and get a gold fish some day. But not yet.” —TMLL

“A person does not grow from the ground like a vine or a tree, one is not part of a plot of land. Mankind has legs so it can wander.”  ― Roman Payne, The Wanderess

“Just to travel is rather boring, but to travel with a purpose is educational and exciting.” – Sargent Shriver

TATTOO—Journeys on My Mind  – GET the audio book (7 hours, 13 minutes) at Barnes and Noble or Google Play or Chirpbooks or Kobo or AudiobooksNow or Downpour or The Podcast App or Scribd or Overdrive. On iTunes, click on audiobooks and search by author.  GET the paperback (232 pages) or e-book at Barnes and Noble, at Apple Books or at Amazon.  The ebook is also at Smashwords.

Characters of Huffinfield (2022) by Tina Marie L. Lamb is now available as an ebook or a paperback at Amazon and at Barnes and Noble.  The ebook is also available at Kobo and at Smashwords.

Buy it. Read it. And let me know what you think.