✈️Just GO
✈️Just Go
It’s easy not to go somewhere. Easier than packing, paying, and stepping into the unknown. Travel isn’t cheap, it isn’t always fun, and sometimes it’s flat-out scary. But every truly human moment I’ve had—the kind that rattles you to the core—started with a decision to go anyway.
🛻 The First Big Leap
I was 32, a young dad with a two-year-old and an eight-week-old, leaving my comfortable California life for graduate school in Nashville. I’d talked about it for years, then one day I just… went.
My dad came to help. We rented a U-Haul truck, strapped the Jetta to the back, and hit the road. Somewhere around Memphis—where I swore I’d never live because it looked like a “hot shithole” (spoiler: I lived there and loved it for 20 years)—I had my first “what the hell am I doing?” moment.
My second hit, after my Dad had left, i still didn’t have a place to live, driving alone, U-Haul rumbling, knowing my family would join me in a week, including my 8 week old daughter, I screamed, cried, and then kept driving. That five-minute meltdown is still etched in my brain. It was the day I learned that fear and excitement often wear the same jacket. Then i found a friend named Jerry, got a place-family arrived- it all worked out, some bumps in the road for sure, but it was the right decision, one made with many unknowns-but a healthy voice whispering- “Just go”.
🚲 Fast-Forward Twenty Years
Now picture this: divorced, kids grown, good job, good friends, music, soccer coaching—life was solid. Then came another chance to move, this time to Amsterdam. I’d said no once before. This time that small, restless voice inside said, “Just go.”
So I did.
February 2020. New city, new job, fresh start… for about 18 days. Then COVID hit. The world shut down. My colleague Troy was quarantined after a trip to China, and suddenly we were all home. I had just moved into my apartment on the canal when the lockdowns began. Couldn’t go out, couldn’t even buy groceries for a week. I remember staring out the window thinking, “My God—what have I done?”(Talking Heads music in the background)
That was my second primal scream moment.
🌇 The Quiet Gift of an Empty City
Those early months were strange, lonely, and oddly beautiful. Amsterdam—normally packed with tourists—was silent. I relearned how to ride a bike without dodging people. I saw the city’s bones: the bridges, canals, old stone buildings, all without the crowds.
I spent real time with my daughter who lives here, explored empty streets, cooked at home, read maps to see which countries were “yellow zones,” and started to travel again the minute I could.
My first trip was a deserted Paris. Then Croatia, Belgium, France… each time with the same little whisper: just go.
🌍 Saying Yes Anyway
There were always reasons to stay put—money, timing, weather, laziness. But each trip reminded me how lame those excuses really are. Since then, I’ve visited over twenty countries and dozens of cities. I’m 63 now, grateful, semi-retired, and living by a simple rule: default to yes.
Because the truth is:
You’ll never have enough money.
Something will always ache.
“Next year” is the easiest lie we tell ourselves.
So go now. Stay in a nice hotel. Order the steak. Eat dessert. Sit on a terrace in Barcelona and eat the fish straight off the boat. You’ll never regret the things you did—only the ones you didn’t.
🧭 What I’ve Learned
Pray to get lost once in a while.
Pray for rain—it changes the light.
Pray for a few wrong turns. That’s where the good stuff hides.
If an old guy like me, who thought his window had closed, can still find magic in new places, then maybe that little voice in your head is right: just go.
And if you can, do it all with a carry-on. 😉