Celebrating Cruising Past Seventy in These Trying Times

Today is the day after Thanksgiving in the unusual year of 2020. Coronavirus cases are increasing exponentially in the dreaded second wave. Hospitals are again getting filled to capacities. And travel seems farther off into the future. Still, I am thankful for a couple of things. On Nov. 25, I turned 72. And my second travel book, Cruising Past Seventy. It’s Not Only about Outer Journeys. It’s Also about Inner Ones, was released by Amazon as a paperback on Nov. 24 and as an ebook on Nov. 28.* 

I know that the title is too long. Actually, it should have been Cruising Past Covid. This is because, one, I finished it while on lockdown. Two, I have an important chapter
entitled “Travel during the Time of Coronavirus,” espousing six safe travel rules based on CDC guidelines. But these weren't enough to change the title to the shorter version.

Lessons Learned, Changes Made, and Insights Gained

It is because, although I may not have intended it at the start, the book came out as very relevant for these trying times. We may not have the opportunity to make “outer” journeys but I know that we have a treasure trove of “inner” journeys inside us. The last paragraph of the book says it best: “Even if we are traveling less, we can look back at past trips, and look forward to future ones. And, from each trip we make, let us build our books of lessons learned, changes made, and insights gained.”

These are the three themes I discovered as I compiled all my best-loved and most widely-read posts from this blog after the first 250 that was the foundation for my first travel book, Carolina: Cruising to an American Dream. In this new travel book, Part 1 describes the lessons we learned from eight years of RVing across North America. Part 2 details the changes I went through from those days and also from our travels to forty-eight countries outside the continent. And Part 3 summarizes the insights I gained from all our trips about common travelers’ concerns. These inner journeys are the best gifts and the deep and long-lasting benefits of travel.

As an interesting note, the second part of the book’s last paragraph goes on to say: “The secret has been and will always be simple. Do not deny your traveler’s soul. Let it roam free. And eat lots of chicken wings and, if possible, also chicken feet.” Those two glorious chicken parts are the foundation of my traveler’s soul: chicken wings with which to fly the skies and chicken feet with which to roam the land. I intend to go back to eating more of them when travel will be more open for us.

chicken wings and chicken feet

Aging Gracefully and Shifting Gears

Seventy-two years is the approximate average life span of a Filipina, a female from the Philippines (which is what I am). But after I migrated to the US in 2004 and became an American in 2011, you can see that I am still alive and quite healthy at that. The average life span of an American woman is about eighty-four. Perhaps I have added twelve years to my life, just like that. And having more years means a longer period to age gracefully.

I may have to give up my tank tops and short shorts, as my husband has been urging me to do. But, as a traveler, it means shifting gears to a lower level, or downshifting. This is the overarching theme of the book. There is an acceptance of time getting shorter, energy becoming less, and even money no longer coming in. How do we travel more gracefully?

Mother Teresa's Chapel in Skopje, MacedoniaAdd caption

My bucket list has become shorter now. My husband and I have begun to scrutinize a destination against a higher bar of “Is it a case of been there; done that?” We have become more selective because we want to travel more comfortably and conveniently, even if not stylishly. I have given up the dream of visiting every country. We have even agreed that some adventures may have already passed us. But there are some more explorations to be made and certainly more pilgrimages to be done.

So I thank the universe for all the blessings, celebrate not only aging but also traveling gracefully, and offer my new travel book to all travelers like us.

*Available on Amazon: ebook at $2.99; paperback, $8.99 https://tinyurl.com/y22sfwds

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