Why Travel When It’s Cold

Or, the case for traveling without luxury. If I look cold in nearly every picture, it's because I was.

“I did it, I did it, I did it” was my mantra as I marveled my way through the John F. Kennedy International Airport in late February 2023. Extended, solo, spontaneous and budget-friendly travel might not sound intimidating to some of you, but the realities of weeks of it had been a personal victory for me. 

Making it happen in the first place was rather a feat. It entailed picking a starting point—Rome, Italy—and packing for living and working abroad for a couple weeks. Or a couple months. Who really knew? I didn’t when I left. I also didn’t know where all I’d go, how I’d get between countries, what I’d eat, how safe I’d be, where I’d stay, and what I’d see.

I also didn’t know how cold I’d be for much of the trip.

Did you know it gets cold in Rome? That it snows in Florence and Greece? And that even without snow, it can be really cold in places like Malta and Portugal and sometimes Spain?

I didn’t really appreciate these possibilities until I was already committed to the venture. My opera…