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I’m recently back from an extended summer vacation, and an unusual one in some regards.

I wanted to talk about it with you briefly, with the goal of encouraging you both to take extended vacations and to make your vacations into true adventures. By this, I mean creating breaks in our routines that are more than holidays, and that become integral, inspiring, and informing aspects of our life.

My summer vacation this year lasted about six weeks, though as I will discuss, its ending point has been somewhat diffuse and I have been feeling “still away” for a few weeks now.

This summer, I backpacked about 900 kilometers, first through California’s Central Sierra mountains and then along the state’s lesser-known Lost Coast, a stretch of coastline simultaneously too rugged and fragile for the coastal highway and thus left unimproved and pristine. You can see photos of the two legs of my trip here and here via Facebook.

Perhaps surprisingly, my long distance trekking was not the unusual part of my vacation, since I typically take long summer wilderness walks. But more expectedly, this trip was indeed an adventure, providing rich experiences and new perspectives, which I think should be the standard for all vacations, whatever the season or locale.

Reflecting on my time away, five simple but I think often overlooked lessons recur, and I would like to share them with you – so you perhaps will have more successful, evocative, and adventurous vacations in the future, whether you choose to spend them walking through mountain ranges or not:

Continue reading “My Summer Adventure”