The little things: the nostalgia & anticipation of great travel

My first flight overseas in 1986 was in fact a New Year’s trip to London. I was an awkward fifteen year-old MTV nerd from rural southwest Minnesota, on a field trip with fellow cross-country runners competing in a Hyde Park 10K race the morning of January 1. Luckily for me, I blew out my ankle earlier that fall, so I didn’t have to train or race - I just had an absolute blast. I fell hard for the city - and madly in love with travel.

This was long before I joined #TeamCarryOn, and it’s a miracle I got the suitcase closed for the trip home: gifts for every family member, dozens and dozens of rolls of film, prized Oxford and Hard Rock Cafe sweatshirts that were handed around for years by my girlfriends. (I wonder where they are - Carrie, Amy, Heidi, Kim, Michelle, Mary? Anyone?) I memorialized the trip in a giant photo album filled with receipts, scraps of paper, candy wrappers, and a hand-written poem that cemented one of my nicknames (aptly titled, “We’re rolling over a girl named Grover…” - ah, thank you, Dave).

But the collectibles I cherish the most from that first trip aren’t objects - they’re the experiences:

• My first English breakfast tea.
• The taste of a mincemeat hand pie.
• The Peter Pan statue in Hyde Park.
• The Canterbury Cathedral nun scolding me for taking pictures.
• The whispers inside the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral.
• The nights laughing, riding the tube and browsing Piccadilly Square.
• The green and white Debbie Harry jersey framed on the wall inside Hard Rock.
• My introduction to anchovy on pizza.
• The glorious tomb of Queen Elizabeth I at Westminster Abbey.
• The mild anxiety walking the Tower of London (having seen Helena Bonham Carter’s 1986 “Lady Jane” film depict the girl’s 1554 execution).
• The wet, chilly moment I leaned against a rune at Stonehenge for a photo. (Thank goodness they don’t allow that anymore.)
• Walking past the window of a Covent Garden restaurant, where a goth punk with a towering mohawk sat having dinner with her elderly parents.
• And of course, the ringing in of the New Year in Trafalgar Square with tens of thousands of new friends.

It’s been 38 years, yet those memories are as fresh in my mind as if they happened yesterday. London set my travel mindset: be present for every moment possible and take stock afterward of the best little bits. I might not have the sweatshirt anymore, but that Hard Rock Cafe cheeseburger and Debbie Harry jersey are forever with me.

I last visited London for a solo birthday trip to myself; I taunted my longtime friend Dave (the poet) with a selfie from the Kensington hotel where we stayed. I’m campaigning for a 40th anniversary reunion trip.

As my friend Maria likes to say, “I hope to get pics this time… but living in the moment is priceless.” For me, it’s the sights, smells, sounds, tastes and textures. If you’re blessed to have your faculties, you’ll never need to stuff the suitcase again.

Here’s to building your own travel collection in 2024. I’m looking forward to every place we visit this year (more on that soon) - and we can’t bring those experiences to you.

Kelly & The WTAF Show team