In the world of dating, it’s probably the most “uncool” thing about me. 

For the approximate ten days (over several years, and not currently) that I have been able to stomach Bumble, it’s clear that travel is hobby number one for eligible bachelors. A scroll through their profiles will tell you this much. “This could work if… You have more stamps in your passport than me” or “My ideal date is… A last minute trip to Croatia”.

Even on real life dates, my lackluster approach to travel has sealed the deal on my potential.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy doing new things, and visiting new places, and appreciating cultures other than my own… I do!

There’s no fear of flight involved. In fact, I love to fly. The daughter of a recreational pilot and aviation nut, I have such fond memories of sitting next to my Dad on planes, so excited for the take off and landing. In fact, if given the opportunity to ride as a passenger with the Blue Angels, I’d do it.

So what was stopping me? 

Money is a factor. As a public servant, I have a job I adore, and an income that I’m grateful for, but as a single woman paying all of her own bills, there’s not a ton left over. And I’ve always just assumed that travel wasn’t a big priority for my discretionary spending.

But the bigger factor has been my dogs, or now, just one dog, OkeDoke. She and her sister HATED being boarded, so travel required securing a dog sitter and incurring those expenses.

But it’s me with the separation anxiety. I hate being away from Oke. I hate missing our morning routine. I hate worrying about whether or not she’s going to get outside in a timely manner. I hate feeling like she’s wondering when I’m going to come home. She will turn 12 this year, and she’s slowing down. I lost her sister so suddenly that I’m terrified that Oke will get sick or hurt while I’m away.

For these reasons, primarily dogs, and secondarily money, I wasn’t very interested in travel and really hadn’t thought about it very much. Until the past year.

My Mom wanted to take me on a trip for my 40th birthday. She was down to go anywhere I wanted. My first thought was the Greek Isles. One of my best friends has gone multiple times, and it just looks like a dream… not to mention one of my favorite cuisines. So it sounded like a great idea.

But as the planning began, I could feel myself tensing up. There was so much distance between this person I wanted to be, who could dart off on an adventure, and the person who was actually there.

I noticed it the most when I started to feel angry and unseen by my friend for giving me the travel advice I had been asking her for, especially when she suggested that a week wasn’t enough time and that ten days would be better. I thought “does she not realize how hard this is for me!?”

That’s when I called my Mom and threw the brakes on the Greek Isles. I said “it’s too much and it’s too long”. My Mom, who has taken a number of international trips in recent years with her sisters, said: “Katie, you have travel anxiety. It’s common.”

At that moment, I felt a shift. I felt less alone. “It’s common.” 

I know a thing or two about anxiety. I have carried the diagnosis of General Anxiety Disorder for many years.

Researcher and author Brene Brown, particularly in her wonderful book (and HBO Max series) “Atlas of the Heart”, discusses how important it is to be able to identify our emotions, and how misidentifying our emotions can prevent us from seeking or accepting the support that we really need.

Once my “travel anxiety” was named, I could start to get the support I needed and begin to truly process it.

I called my friend back and said “turns out, I have travel anxiety” to which she replied with love and humor “yes, we all know”.

She had moved to Philadelphia almost 9 years earlier, and I’d never gone to visit. I’d made another friend feel rejected at times when I’d turned down her requests to go on a trip here or there. None of it had been purposeful or particularly conscious, especially not to me.

With awareness of my travel anxiety, I could begin to take baby steps. I have loads of energy and drive, and generally allow nothing to hold me back, but especially not myself.

Without plans for international travel, I applied for and received my U.S. Passport, so that’s out of the way.

Part of the reason I was hesitant to take the longer trip with my Mom is because the two of us were already planning to go to Florida for a week this Spring. That full week will easily be the longest time I’ve been out of the state in over a decade. I’d already been nervous about it, but it’s a vacation that my Mom had booked with my Dad before he died last year, so when she asked me to go with her, my answer was “of course”. It turns out that travel anxiety is no match to a daughter who wants to be there for her Mom.

But as far as my 40th birthday trip goes, already having planned to be away for a week in Florida, I wanted something lower key. So we made plans for a long weekend in Savannah instead and I’m looking forward to it.

I’ve been coming to realize, as I advance and excel in my career, that more travel to conferences would become necessary.

Last winter, as I was attempting to break through the writer’s block I’d encountered after the death of my father, I wrote two presentation proposals for a conference. A couple weeks ago, I learned that BOTH had been accepted, and I began the process of planning yet another trip, this time for work, for four nights in Baltimore. It’s a little ironic, isn’t it, that I’m more nervous about leaving my dog than giving two separate presentations in rooms full of strangers!? Apparently my travel anxiety is also no match to the passion I have for my work. 

But how could I go out to Baltimore and not visit my best friend an hour or two away in Philadelphia?! So I’m tacking two more nights on the trip, and after the conference, I’m taking the train from Baltimore to Philly.

The twenty nights I’m going to be on the road in the first five months of 2023 will add up to be more nights than I’ve been away from home (without my dog) in the last five years combined. And if I’m honest, I’m really nervous about all of it, mostly about leaving Oke. But I’m proud of myself, too, for working through my own fear and discomfort.

While my travel anxiety mostly seems to surround my dog and finances, there’s one other element that’s been holding me back. Comfort and contentment. I’ll probably always be a bit of a homebody because I love my house. I love it every single time I come home and am met by Oke. I love my neighborhood and I love my city. There’s an adage that you should “create a life that you don’t need a vacation from”. And while I agree with that in terms of escaping our problems rather than confronting them, I now see how it can go too far the other way. The true essence of “home” is a place that you can always come back to, whether that’s a physical house, a certain town or city, an idea or feeling, even a person, or a pet. But to come back, you have to leave, and if you can’t leave, are you at home or are you stuck?