Live your life like it's a Backroads trip

Your own hometown has secrets to share. Your daily routine can be delightful. It all depends upon you opening your eyes wide to novelty, surprises and adventure. What if you approached your daily commute from a totally different direction? Infused your evening walk with a sense of wonder? Try it, and you might just find there really is no place like home. Be Curious Chances are, when you travel somewhere new you enter your experience with excitement and curiosity. Imagine if you approached your own backyard with that same attitude. What birds might you find that frequent the pond in your local park? Where did your new neighbors grow up and why did they choose to move to your street? Perhaps you'd like to open yourself to a whole new experience. Sign up for a pottery class or read deeply into a local issue being discussed in the newspaper. Extend the courtesy of curiosity to the delights hidden in your own home--you won't be disappointed. Roll With Your Pals

Rolling with my pals!

When you're traveling the world with Backroads you're part of an amazing team. You can explore as an individual, or you can roll alongside a whole group of inspired friends. Do the same at home!  Surround yourself with others who love adventure. Who look at the world in different ways. Traveling with a team of friends, old and new, can make even your most routine daily activities more fun. Stay open to meeting new people--as you might while you're traveling abroad. Put your phone away. Keep your head up. Make eye contact. Smile. Be present and attentive--really strive to learn about people--even your next door neighbor has a story to tell. Bring Snacks! Seriously! Everything is better with snacks... Take a page from our Backroads book and be sure that wherever you go, you're carrying something tasty. And bring enough to share. You never know what doors may open up to you. And of course, everything is more fun when you're well fed. My friends like to use the term "hangry" with me when I get angry as a result of being hungry. Don't let this happen to you. Plan ahead and bring snacks. Send a Postcard Home!

Travel Journal

Well--not literally of course. But do take time to reflect on your days. Journal, write a letter or send an email to a friend to share your experiences. Spending a bit of time being grateful for your experiences will help you to create more fun--and can make each day feel richer. So pull out that battered travel journal you packed along on your last overseas adventure and fill it with something you did today at home. In this way--living every day of your life like you're a traveler--you will truly be awake and alive in your every day. As Henry David Thoreau once said, "I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life..." You don't need to go to the woods. You don't need to get on a plane. You can suck the marrow of life straight from your home, your street, your community. And in doing so we can almost guarantee others will come along beside you. Take that first curious step and see what happens.