Are you a Chicken?

BonnieAndI

It’s the summer! It’s time for 3-day weekends, tan-lines, corn-hole, and Arnold Palmers (half iced tea & half lemonade, you’re welcome if you’ve never had one).  The summer is also time for spontaneous travel.  So where are you going?  Or are you going to find 57 excuses not to leave a 20-mile radius of your place?Let’s talk about chickens (nailed that transition).  When you raise chickens for the first few months of their lives you have to keep and feed them in a pen.  After those months you can remove the pen and the chickens will never venture out of a certain radius away from their food.  So let me ask...are you a chicken?Everyone, meet Bonnie. I had the opportunity to sit next to this warm-hearted rural Minnesotan on a flight recently. She had the best accent & told me all about her husband, Earl Dean.  She told me they met at a polka and he asked her to dance. He was apparently a terrible dancer but she fell for him anyway. The whole ride she would lean over and tell him across the aisle about what kind of drink he should order (tomato juice) & that they were serving scones.   We talked the whole flight and she invited me over to her house if I was ever back in the area (you already know that’s going to happen!)Bonnie and Earl Dean were flying back from Memphis after celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary!  I asked Bonnie if she and Earl Dean traveled a lot.  She said this was only her second time in her life outside of Minnesota.  I asked her if this trip has sparked her inner travel bug and she replied, “Oh no, that was quite enough for me, I’ll stick to Minnesota.”  At that moment I realized that my new friend was a chicken!Before I go further, let me first acknowledge the privilege I grew up with.  I was very fortunate to grow up in a house that could afford to travel. Also, my parents were both hippies in their past lives, so road tripping is in my blood.With that being said, I cannot emphasize the need to get out for a little while.  Go visit your friend in XYZ state or country.  If money is the issue, find travel buddies. Get in the car and drive or take a Megabus/Boltbus/Greyhound/Amtrak to a place where people sound different than you.   Stay in tents, hostels, use AirBnB.com, crash on friend’s couches.If you have the opportunity to go for longer do it!  Take an internship in the city if you’re from the country (or vice versa).   Go to grad school at any other school but where you went to undergrad.  One of my biggest regrets from college was not studying abroad.  Take advantage of the opportunities you have! When you do travel make sure you experience the culture, don’t just stay on the resort or in the house and avoid chain restaurants!Being comfortable is very scary.  In my opinion, the moment you think you have everything figured out is the exact moment that you don’t.  Stop making generalizations about what other places are probably like.  Stop assuming you don’t have to go somewhere to know how its people live. And stop making excuses for why you never travel.  You are not a chicken, your wings work fine, so it’s time to get out of your own way and fly.