You know how it is. It’s been a while since your last trip. You have a little cabin fever and start to feel that itchy restless feeling. It happens to me around the holidays every year. I have been known to plan an entire year of travel in December and this year is like that.
January, I’m planing a trip down the rabbit hole. Ravenwood Castle, an area B&B, is hosting an event based on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Since I’m a sucker for classic children’s literature, I can’t miss it! I’ll bring my adult daughter and my nine year old niece for some special, literary family time.
March, it’s off to Getaway Cabins to deprive myself of cell service and Wi-Fi to concentrate on the revision of a short story I’m working on. My husband and I call it our annual “spring forward retreat” since we always go during the dreaded week of starting daylight savings time. That week can kill you! We lounge around the cabin honing our respective crafts. I write and Dearest designs and creates Native American bead work.
June is a busy month. I have 2 trips. First to Toronto (one of my favorite cities!) for the TBEX convention for travel writers and bloggers where I get to bask in the luster of other Wanderlusters. Then it’s off to Madison Wisconsin for the annual round-up of Tamaskan Dogs and National Tamaskan Club of America dog show. (My two girls placed 2nd and 3rd in the puppy category last year.)
The lazy months of summer I’m content to stay put. It’s a magical time in my home city of Columbus, Ohio and the local festivals, gallery-hops and area celebrations are too much fun to miss! Then in Autumn, my favorite season, I love to meander our local metro park trails, area state parks and recreations areas. I’m a tourist at home during these months.
When Winter creeps up again in November, I’m planning my big trip of the year. Tulum in tropical Quintana Roo, Mexico is as far as you can get from the chaos of Cancun and still enjoy the Mexican Caribbean (and gorge on ceveche.) Besides, there is an ancient Mayan city that has been calling to me for years. In 2007 I planned to explore Cobá but the trip was canceled at the last minute. I’ve regretted missing that adventure ever since. This year. I’m going to take it! I am told Cobá is still mostly unexcavated. Most of the buildings are as raw and natural as they were when John Lloyd Stephens wrote about them in his 1841 book “Incidents of Travel in the Yucatan” Though he, himself, never saw them and it would be 40 years before anyone other than the locals took any interest in the site. Though I’ve been to Chichen Itza, I’d really like to see Cobá!
How about you? Does writing or literature ever inspire your travels? When do you get restless? What travels do you dream of for 2013?