Five couples who are longtime friends were together celebrating the birthday of one of the members.
While the other six were at the dining room table eating, my wife and I sat with the final couple next to the kitchen munching happily on Lowcountry Boil. There are few things better than the shrimp, crab legs, corn on the cob, potatoes and sausage cooked together along with a heavy dose of Old Bay spice.
In our conversation, we talked about family, retirement, friends and travel. Our friends across the table have had trips to a number of destinations, as have my wife and I. We had just returned from our trip to France, and our friends were eager to hear about it. Then came the question.
After listening to a few of our French highlights, the gentleman asked, “What is the favorite place you have visited?”
My wife and I looked at each other and pondered the sites we have seen — most of them since our retirements. There have been visits to amazing places. We scanned back through the years thinking of visits to national parks in the American west — Glacier, Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Death Valley, Sequoia among them.
There were trips to Alaska where we had a whale of a time and were enthralled with our nation’s largest state. A visit to Maine with a pair of grandchildren was fascinating as we dined on lobster and went whitewater rafting.
Cruises have taken us places we never would have dreamed as younger adults. London, Paris, Istanbul and Athens were only names in history books and places on maps until we were there in person. Scotland is my ancestral nation (think William Wallace and “Braveheart”) and felt more like home only when I ate haggis in Edinburgh and stood on the shore of Loch Ness (but we saw no monster in the water!).
Norway and Iceland were favorites, the former because of its beauty, the latter by virtue of its unusual terrain and reliance on geothermal energy.
But a favorite? Now that was seemingly a hard answer to reach, because all of those and others had special appeal for us. Then the answer came to me as it did to Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz.” There’s no place like home.
“Aiken,” I said in reply to the question of the favorite place we have been. “Right here at home.”
While travel has its benefits and is eye opening, there is a lot to be said for sleeping in a familiar bed, knowing exactly where the bathroom is at 3 a.m. and pulling out the day’s clothing without rummaging through a suitcase.
Being able to get into our car at a moment’s notice and drive where we want without having to wait for a train, bus, taxi or plane is something we take for granted. Getting around our hometown and not having to rely on a map or GPS system to find our destination is a blessing.
Foraging through the fridge late at night for food I know I’ll like is preferable to the fare offered at the front desks of hotels in the U.S. or abroad. When at home, I can turn on my TV with a click of the remote and find programs of choice with ease. That is not normally the case on out-of-town trips with foreign remotes and indecipherable directions.
Friendly faces in the neighborhood and behind the counters of local shops is preferable to entering a store and wondering if the shopkeeper speaks English or comprehends my broken (very) French.
While taking cruises and awakening to new vistas every morning is nice, I’m a guy who likes two feet on the ground and the reliability of knowing that the view from my front window is never changing. Call me boring, and that’s OK. Home sweet home — there’s nothing quite like it.
This post was originally published on here
