Drive

Somewhere near Moosehead Lake

This post was originally published November 16, 2023.

Many childhood weekends were spent in a car, going for a drive. Sometimes there were intended destinations. Sometimes there weren’t. For the most part, the point was to look out the window and watch the world around me.

It took several years before I started watching. I spent many drives reading or writing, but as I grew older, my focus began to wane, and I leaned my head against the cool glass as I looked at the trees, the fields, the coast. My family didn’t go on many vacations to new places, but we did go on a lot of drives.

Somewhere near Rockland

Despite being someone who ran a travel blog for a couple years, I consider myself to be quite the homebody. I like to curl up in the comfort of my own couch, among my own blankets. When COVID struck, my sense of adventure dissipated, and there was no place better than my own home. But even then, I recognized a need to get out of my box and into the world.

So I got in my car and drove.

Somewhere near Blue Hill

I’ve been publishing my Places Between series, showcasing the stops I’ve made over the last few years, but there’s countless more I’ve driven through. The truth is, there’s many times—maybe even most times—when I travel, that I never stop. I just keep driving, witnessing the world as it lives and breathes around me. Sometimes I’ll pull over and snap pictures of a beautiful view at an indistinct location. I’ll comb google maps trying to figure out where exactly I stopped and sometimes never know.

This post is for some of those places. For the days I spent chasing the fresh snowfall or craved the sparkling crests of the coastline. Sometimes the best travel is the travel without a destination.