Brianna Walker

When traveling is a priority in your life, it impacts every decision you make. You’re always looking to shave a few dollars off your grocery budget to spend on that next trip. You think twice before ordering dessert; surely the kids’ ski gloves will work another season — a hole? That’s what Gorilla Tape is for. OK, so maybe it’s not that bad — all the time. But travel planning becomes an intrinsic part of your being.

Thankfully, my husband and I both look at each other the way we look at travel brochures — longingly. Which is probably one of the reasons we are celebrating 20 years of wedded bliss. We both love traveling almost as much as each other, so it wasn’t surprising we wanted to celebrate with a trip.

Most people have coffee and read the paper, or do their daily Wordle in the morning — but not at our house. On the days when we have time for breakfast, it’s usually spent looking for our next trip (whether that’s the nearest natural hot springs, a kayak adventure or an overseas jaunt).

About this time last year, we found the trip we wanted to take for our anniversary. We looked at plane tickets. We tossed around scenarios.

For several months, we toyed with the idea. There were definitely some things that could be considered red flags. For one, it was five weeks. We have never been gone that long at a stretch before. Two, it was during lambing season. And three, it would cover two issues of Agri-Times, the newspaper I publish. But the price was unbeatable. For weeks it occupied our thoughts. Should we take the trip of a lifetime? Or should we be responsible and stay home?

Then a good friend, not much older than us, tragically lost her husband. That was the deciding factor. There will always be work and responsibilities … but our kids are growing fast, and tomorrow isn’t promised us. So we pulled the trigger and booked five weeks for our family of four to see nine countries in Europe and one in Africa.

Throughout spring and summer, each time we’d start to get tired or discouraged, we’d just start dreaming of that vacation. We dangled that carrot over our noses all through harvest. As fall finally rolled around, we didn’t get our usual little breaks. Have you ever tried to plan being gone from your farm and business for five weeks? Every spare moment was crammed with preparations. Thankfully, we have an amazing team that agreed to watch our house, animals and livestock and even help with our fruit business while we were gone.

We worked right up until the day before our flight — then went into overdrive attempting to pack. Throwing clothes together for a Caribbean trip is easy. Bikinis, wraps, sandals and camera. But Finland recently had made national news for hitting -40F. A friend we’d be visiting tried reassuring me, “It’s not nearly as cold in the south of Finland. It’s only -20 here!” So no bikini, wraps and sandals for this trip! My suitcase was heaped with clothes. How is it in normal life you’d be OK wearing the same jeans every day for a week, but pack for a vacation and suddenly you think you’re going to be changing outfits three times a day, and you somehow end up with your entire wardrobe piled in your suitcase?

While I was trying on dresses I hadn’t worn in years, my husband came in, opened his suitcase, pulled out some clothes and zipped it up and grinned mischievously. I rolled my eyes and pulled out a dress I haven’t worn since I bought it. “I should definitely take this,” I said, tucking it into an already full bag of fun, flirty and exciting clothes that I rarely wear at home.

Then we headed off on our adventure, beginning in snow-covered, negative-digit France — where I would have given anything to have traded all that fun, flirty clothing for my warm, insulated coveralls. That was when I made my first discovery of our five-week adventure: There is not bad weather — just bad clothing.