Distant Friendships Endure

What’s something you enjoyed that you never thought you would?

“It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.” (L.M. Montgomery – Anne of Green Gables)

I’ve never envisioned that staying with friends in their homes during our road trip vacations would be a comfortable experience. For let’s face it. I’d be infringing on the “ups and downs” of their daily lives under such confined housing conditions. Compounding that issue would be the likelihood that I might be obligated to sedentarily “hang out” with them and thus miss out on visiting what sights I might really want to see in the areas they reside in.

But I must remember why these chosen few I’ve visited became friends of my wife and me in the first place. Most likely, common interests played a huge role in our initial attraction to them via live entertainment, healthful living, as well as the joyful spirit of travel. As we also attempted to deal with more limited income in retirement mode, we increasingly felt that allotting more stays with friends would enable us to reduce our lodging expenditure budget on those long vacations.

Looking beyond these practical considerations of distant friendships, I might add that most recently we’d become more cognizant that such sustained friendships in travel seemed to offer strategies for emotionally handling some ongoing life challenges. In particular, I felt an obligation, to reach out to friends more cross country for better dealing with elderly parent issues and times of social isolation at home. Listen to the song in the link below. Consider then how your upcoming travel experiences might rekindle a beautiful friendship in such a passionate way?

https://youtu.be/BcJbzuyp6VY?si=LcFLOhhJWdhbXMyt

 

So as our busy travel agenda winds down for 2023, I’m actually looking forward to the prospect of sustaining our enduring friendships with guest appearances in distant homes. Check out the following captioned photo section below as I recognize some memorable home stay settings with friends that have taken place in our wandering lives in recent years.