Traveling or Voyaging?

Today I'm on a business trip to California.  I actually haven't traveled nearly as much this year as I have for the past few, which is nice.  Anyway, business trips for me are rarely too much fun on their own.  I've written about these issues in a past post.  I always try to find a little time for myself, though, and do something I enjoy.  Interestingly, I find that simpler when I'm not traveling with others, as they generally tend to do the standard dinner and drinks and off to bed routine.

It was a beautiful day in Silicon Valley [as is nearly every day of the year], and this was the view out my hotel window at 7pm, looking south across the whole valley:

Anyway, today I found myself in informal travel mode, and coincidentally wearing a traveler shirt:

Perhaps this was a subliminal message to me, as when I found myself alone at dinnertime I felt the urge to travel further, rather than go visit a guitar store or similar, which is my tendency when I'm here.  This urge to travel, particularly to the ocean, is a common theme when I travel.

So tonight, from San Jose, I drove west to visit one of my favourite spots: Santa Cruz.  It's actually only about 40 miles away, but with the crossing of a mountain range and moving from semi-desert to coastal weather, it seems like another world.  Unfortunately, I didn't factor in that there are fewer hours of sunlight here in Northern California than 1000km to the north in Vancouver.  I left San Jose at 7:30pm, and the sun had already set when I arrived on the coast.

I had visited Santa Cruz a few times in the past.  My first visit in 1995 involved arriving on a sailboat after sailing 7 days nonstop from the mouth of Juan de Fuca Strait at the north tip of Washington state.  Needlesstosay the warm, dry port of Santa Cruz left an indelible positive impression on me.  On that visit, I had a chance to walk around various parts of town, as the harbour is pretty central.

And I have stolen a few quick evening visits over there when in San Jose on business, including at least one very enjoyable evening with a variety of business associates.  I had never visited the Lighthouse Field State Park area, southwest of the town pier.  So that was my initial objective for this evening, and it didn't disappoint.  Although the sun was down, the twilight colours were pretty, and the silhouettes of windblown pine trees gave the entire scene a poetry I wasn't expecting.

I thoroughly enjoyed walking around the area, observing the slow swell and occasional surf breaking on the sandy shore, the undulating kelp beds, and my favourite brown pelicans gliding effortlessly above the waves.

I even put off dinner in order enjoy as much of this lovely environment as I could take in.  I found myself cursing the fact that I had not brought a good camera with me.  I took quite a few pictures on my iPhone 4, but they tend to be pretty poor, paricularly in lower light.  I think they've captured the moment, though.

As I left the area, I drove a bit further up the coast, and then decided I've always wanted to see Halfmoon Bay, so why not carry on the adventure a bit further.  Of course the evening was getting pretty dark by this point, and Halfmoon Bay was well over 40 miles north of Santa Cruz.  But once beside the great ocean, I found myself reluctant to pull away so quickly.  So off I set, into the relative unknown.  I had actually driven this section of road once before on a Saturday off during a business trip.  Cruising up the dim strip of pavement was just familiar enough to be enjoyable.  This section of Highway 1 isn't overly twisty, so it was quite good driving despite the hour.  And of course I had lucked into a clear day on the coast... it's often foggy along this strip.

As I drove up the highway, I found myself musing about the difference between traveling and voyaging.  To me, a voyage involves discovery and new experiences.  As a business traveler, I have long abandoned that sort of feeling when it comes to basic business travel.  I equate travel with sitting in airports, sitting on planes, sitting in meeting rooms... lots of sitting.  But I do often find tastes of voyaging wherever I go, if I can just manage a few hours to explore.  Sometimes, like tonight, it's a solo jaunt up some unfamiliar coast in a rental car.  I've done it from Boston up past Salem, and from Tampa, Florida out to see Cape Canaveral.  Or a crazy drive across Europe last September when I had a few days free between meetings and tore from Genoa, Italy up to Stockholm, Sweden... and then back at the end of the week.

But equally fascinating have been the more urban voyages.  The narrow alleyways of old Genoa.  The cobblestone streets of Copenhagen.  Discovering pubs with good mates in Soho... both London and Manhattan.

Interestingly, my voyage tonight included arriving at Half Moon Bay to find that I was unable to locate the harbour I saw earlier from the air, when looking in the dark on the ground.  Perhaps a failure to achieve one of today's objectives, but also an opportunity to bring myself there again, perhaps in another context.  And in daylight.

If you find yourself traveling... have a little look to see if you can locate the voyage in your travels.  It makes for a more fulfilling trip.

Cheers

Dave

Comments

[Kelvin Ting]

I agree. My Santa Cruz ocean swim is an engraved ritual whenever i'm in the Bay area (even in December). The invigorating swim snaps everything back to real world. Happy future voyaging!