Our Next Adventure: A Little Closer to Home

In just four days, Carla and I will be on the road again. This time we’re heading back to Mexico for about ten weeks, splitting our time between San Miguel de Allende and Oaxaca before returning to the States for the holidays.

In some ways, this trip looks a little different from the way we’ve been traveling these past few years. We’ve become accustomed to leaving for long stretches - four, five, sometimes six months at a time - and settling into places for weeks before moving on. We still love traveling that way, and I suspect we always will. But life changes, and one of the gifts travel has given us is learning how to change with it.

This year, rather than disappearing for one long stretch, we’re breaking our travels into smaller pieces. We’ll travel for a couple of months, come home for the holidays, head out again for another stretch, and then return for a little visit and check-in before continuing on. And for this first stretch, Mexico simply made sense.

A five-hour flight sounds awfully good compared with fifteen. We’ll be in roughly the same time zone and close enough that getting home doesn’t feel like crossing half the planet. And most importantly, we’ll be back for the holidays.

Carla’s parents are getting older, and her dad is 92. Everyone is doing well, but at this point in our lives, being available feels increasingly important. We don’t want to stop traveling, nor do we feel that we need to. We simply want to stay more connected while we do it, and there’s something comforting about knowing we can have both.

We can still wander through unfamiliar streets, wake up somewhere new, photograph beautiful places, eat food we’ve never tried, and immerse ourselves in another culture. And we can also come home, sit around the table with the people we love, celebrate the holidays together, and stay a little closer to the lives unfolding here. That balance feels right.

Our first stop will be San Miguel de Allende, a place we visited about three years ago under circumstances that were, shall we say, less than ideal. Carla got COVID. I came down with what I thought was a cold that hung around for nearly a month and eventually turned out to be an infection. Carla was also dealing with a frozen shoulder and a sprained ankle. It seemed as though a small cloud had decided to follow us all the way to Mexico and take up residence over our apartment.

And yet, we still loved San Miguel. That probably says something about the place.

It is an extraordinarily beautiful town, filled with color, remarkable architecture, art, music, galleries, cafes, and streets that seem made for wandering. San Miguel has a substantial international community, but when we were there, it still felt very much like Mexico to us. The local culture was present everywhere, and the city had a life of its own that went well beyond the expat community.

We’re looking forward to returning and hopefully feeling considerably better than we did the first time around. By the time we arrive, the rainy season should be winding down, and the days are generally mild with cooler evenings - the sort of weather that makes walking all day feel like a pretty good idea.

Then, in late November, we’ll move on to Oaxaca.

We’ve never been there, but it’s one of those places that seems to come with an unusually enthusiastic fan club. Nearly everyone we know who has visited tells us the same thing: You’re going to love Oaxaca. Everything we’ve read and watched gives us good reason to believe them.

Oaxaca is widely regarded as one of Mexico’s great food destinations, and that alone has our attention. Mole, tlayudas, tamales, chocolate, mezcal, and other regional specialties reflect traditions that stretch back generations. Indigenous cultures remain especially strong and visible throughout Oaxaca, shaping its food, art, textiles, language, markets, and everyday life.

And then there is the art. Like San Miguel, Oaxaca has a reputation for being an especially creative place, with galleries, workshops, craftspeople, and artists woven into the life of the city. That combination of food, history, art, architecture, and strong local culture is pretty much irresistible to us.

We’ll stay until December 19, then head home in time for Christmas and Hanukkah. After the holidays, we’ll travel again, but once more for a shorter stretch before returning for another visit. For now, that feels like a pretty good rhythm.

One of the things I’ve come to appreciate most about travel is that it teaches flexibility in ways that have very little to do with missed trains or changed reservations. You learn that there isn’t only one right way to do things. For a time, six months away might feel exactly right. Later, two months may feel better. You can cross an ocean one year and decide that a five-hour flight sounds wonderful the next. You can love Europe and still discover that what fits your life at this particular moment is Mexico.

None of that means giving something up. It simply means paying attention.

Travel, at its best, has always asked that of us - to notice where we are, the people around us, what has changed, and what our lives are asking of us now rather than insisting they continue looking the way they did before.

So this autumn, our wandering will take us a little closer to home, and we’re excited about where it’s leading.

As always, I’ll be writing about it here each week. Those of you who follow me on Facebook already know that I’ll also be rather relentless about posting photographs. I’m afraid five years of traveling hasn’t cured me of that yet. 😊

Here’s wishing everyone a wonderful autumn. The leaves will soon begin doing what they do every year - changing because that’s simply part of being alive. There may be a little wisdom in that for the rest of us too.

Change doesn’t always mean something was wrong with the life we already had. Sometimes life simply moves, the people we love grow older, our priorities shift, and a different way of doing things begins to fit a little better.

For now, ours happens to lead to Mexico. And we’re very grateful for where it’s taking us.