“We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again- to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.”
 – Pico  Lyer

There never seems to be enough time or money to satisfy my need to travel and vacation. Three weeks turns into a need for four, four into a need for five. Is my life so difficult, so stressful, do I dislike my job so much that I will need six, seven, or more? The answer is "no," I have a good job, a great wife, family and friends, bills are paid and money is being saved for retirement, I have a good life. 

"We travel, initially to lose ourselves..."  I thought I was going to be an archeologist, discovering and digging up dinosaurs, at least that's what I thought when I was a kid. In sixth grade I was able to name all the state capitols, beating out all my other classmates, to win the class contest. Surely I was on a path that would take me to the Oval Office, maybe? Instead, I started pouring concrete foundations as a summer job, and never looked back. I owned my own foundation company when I was 23 or 24, a business owner, the next Bill Gates, but it was short lived. College at 28, and back to concrete at 32. Hard work never scared me, so Day and I began our lives together, worked hard, saved money, bought our first home and got married. We've worked, paid bills, enjoyed our friends and family, and vacationed, vacationed a lot. Somewhere in all those years, as good as they were, I lost myself in the day to day drudgeries. I have become someone I don't know or like. "I travel to lose myself," I travel to leave behind the person I have become, in hopes of finding the person I want to be, or was meant to be... "and we travel, next to find ourselves."

Vacations begin with great anticipation...