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The Rise of the Secret Vacations

 


I recently took a secret vacation.  Judging from both my personal and my business social media accounts, many of my friends and family have also taken secret vacations over the last several months.  It seems no one has traveled anywhere or done anything all summer.  I can't be the only one who has noticed the flood of secret vacations going on this year.  I know for a fact that many of my closest family and friends have indeed taken family vacations, road trips, flights, and experienced camping adventures but not once posted a single thing about the vacations on social media.  Most summers my feeds are flooded with vacation pictures, travel stories, and the like but this year has been crickets.  I have my theories as you probably do and when I returned from my recent trip, I struggled to decide what I wanted to post or not post about my vacation.


Based only on my social media accounts, I have had a total of two friends travel since March.  One was posting each day about a very secluded location that she and her family had found and stated each day that she felt blessed to have not seen a single person the entire day.  Another friend posted about a very opposite trip.  She and her family took a road trip making sure to hit all the more populated and popular areas and stating each day how healthy she and her family were feeling.  Two very different motivations for these posts and my motivations for sharing a vacation on social media don't happen to fall into either of these categories. 


I simply love to travel and see new places.  Exploring nature especially leaves me in awe of the variety of life on this planet.  I adore time with my family and travel companions and I tend to take three or four larger trips a year though this year is an exception.  My last large trip was to Monterey, California at the beginning of March.  I left behind a fairly normal world and returned to empty store shelves and chaos.  My recent trip was with my husband and two adult daughters.  We flew to our destination.  Yes, voluntarily and after much thought and consideration.  I knew that we would see some people at our destination but felt confident that safety protocols were in place to our satisfaction.  The flight, I will admit made me nervous, however it was a risk we decided to take as a family and would quarantine upon our return.  It was our decision and I am not ashamed of my trip yet posting on social media about the trip made me pause.



Family and close friends knew about the vacation and that I would be away for a time but in the end, I decided to post nothing on social media about our trip.  So why did I keep quiet?  Because everyone else for the most part has not shared?  Because there was no point that I wanted to make?  Because I didn't want to hear disapproval or comments about the merits of staying home?  I guess all of the above if I am honest.  Who wants to take a trip, return excited, and be met with judgment or questions about my logic or compassion for others?  I have a multitude of photos from my travels.  I admit many are nature photos but I also have plenty of my family and things we did together.  Ultimately I suppose I wanted nothing to taint my valuable memories of this trip and realize that all I can do is keep walking the path I feel is right.  


I will be sharing some nature photos on my Twitter account this week and will be talking about some of the unique animals and plants I discovered in my next blog.  I will not share where I went or what I did so this summer I took a secret vacation.  I will say though that we had a fantastic time and I hope as you continue to walk your travel path whether near or far, you build memories that will stay with you forever.

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