{"id":1181,"date":"2014-12-24T06:07:38","date_gmt":"2014-12-24T12:07:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theagostins.com\/?p=1181"},"modified":"2014-12-24T06:07:38","modified_gmt":"2014-12-24T12:07:38","slug":"3-months-of-travel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/?p=1181","title":{"rendered":"What I’m Learning So Far: 3 Months of Travel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"What<\/a>We have been traveling for three months now. As predicted, it feels like it has flown by! When we were preparing for this trip, we thought through what we wanted to get out of it, what we wanted to learn, how we hoped it would change us and grow us. It was intimidating to come up with those big scary goals, and it was impossible to say how we would grow. But almost daily as we are traveling, Rick and I find ourselves talking about something we\u2019re learning, or something we had as head knowledge, but is really sinking in now.<\/p>\n

So I figured I would share a few of those thoughts. As I got into writing this, it turned into a MUCH longer post than I initially thought. So I\u2019m breaking it up into a series of them. Here\u2019s the first installment, in no particular order:<\/p>\n

1) Stop Spending Your Energy Looking for The Best<\/strong><\/h3>\n

You\u2019re better off making the most of where ever you are, than trying to figure out where you should be. I\u2019m really bad at this. Like really, really bad.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m learning that with perpetual travel like we\u2019re doing, you are basically constantly in planning mode. It\u2019s very different from a vacation \u2013 where it\u2019s super fun to plan, you spend weeks or months learning about a place, what to see, where to stay, eat, what are the \u201ccan\u2019t miss\u201d things there. But when that\u2019s everyday, it\u2019s gets really overwhelming and there\u2019s just not enough time. I can\u2019t plan for the next country we\u2019ll be in because I\u2019m trying to figure out where the heck we are right now, what we\u2019re not supposed to miss, where we\u2019re sleeping and how we\u2019re getting from the train station to somewhere that\u2019s not in the ghetto. So if I let it (and sometimes I do), every moment of every day could be spent planning where to go next, what to see \u2013 and even if you have time to do any of those \u201cbest things\u201d at that point, you have no energy to because you\u2019re beat down from all of the researching.<\/p>\n

Confession: I am TERRIBLE about this!! (And if you knew me back in Texas, you\u2019re probably nodding along that I was terrible about this at home too) What\u2019s worse is that I\u2019ve dragged Rick down into this habit with me \u2013 he didn\u2019t used to do it \u2013 but I\u2019ve brought him to the dark side. And this habit is what starts the majority of our frustration and fights I think.<\/p>\n

As I\u2019m writing this, God is definitely speaking to me, \u201cLiz, why do you think you do that?…. Hint, hint, is it because you struggle with control? Is it because you too often forget that I have a plan for where I want you to be and when I want you to be there? Do you forget to trust my timing and hand on you?\u201d Yes, nailed it, God!<\/p>\n

You\u2019re better off going to one of the first places you find, it may be mediocre or flat out crappy, but you\u2019ve saved yourself a ton of stress and you actually have energy remaining to enjoy it. That goes from the smallest things, like the restaurant you’re eating at or which temple to visit, to the bigger travel things like which country in Southeast Asia to go to or which island to stay on.<\/p>\n

There’s a danger to always looking for, seeking out the best, always trying to figure it out and get to it. I’m an addict though. I always want to figure out what the best option is and go for that one. But it’s easy to miss where you are when you\u2019re mid-super-research-and-planning-extravaganza looking for the best. And certain moments in a mediocre place can be so much more fulfilling, memorable, and meaningful than the time you would spend in that perfect place. Make the most of where you are, instead of looking for the best place \u2013 I\u2019ll be working on this one for the next leg of our journey.<\/p>\n

\"Learning<\/a><\/p>\n

2) I Don\u2019t Have To Have It All Figured Out<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Actually I only have to have a very, very little bit figured out \u2013 Who God is, and who I am to God. Everything else will work out, as long as I’m focused on those two things.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

3) Learning What I Like: Mountains, Countryside<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Being free to be where I want, having those options, has helped me to realize things I enjoy most. Previously, living in a city, I kind of assumed that I liked getting out into nature, the country, just because it was different that what I saw everyday. But now that we are bouncing around between cities and more rural places, Rick and I have both found that we really like being out in nature much more that being in even the most interesting and beautiful cities. Not a huge break though here, but good to know. I\u2019ve also determined that I\u2019m a mountain person. I\u2019m just happier at altitude and with mountains as my backdrop. Even when I\u2019m at some of the most beautiful beaches in the world\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>I would rather be in the mountains. I\u2019m looking forward to continuing to learn more of these innate preferences as we continue the journey.<\/p>\n

PS – For Rick, definitely countryside over city. He could do beaches or mountains, definitely not as strong of a preference as me, but he leans towards mountains.<\/p>\n

\"Learning…well that’s probably already too long for one post, so I’ll stop there and pick up in another post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have been traveling for three months now. As predicted, it feels like it has flown by! When we were preparing for this trip, we thought through what we wanted to get out of it, what we wanted to learn, how we hoped it would change us and grow us. It was intimidating to come […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[97,107,109,110],"class_list":["post-1181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-learning","tag-beaches","tag-countryside","tag-learning","tag-mountains"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickagostin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}