Our breakfast view during 10 magical days in Tuscany.
Rove (verb): to travel constantly without a fixed destination; wander
How often do we have the chance to leave behind our day-to-day reality and do something different, possibly crazy and potentially life-changing? I know. That’s exactly why, when presented with this rarest of opportunities, I pounced. I needed to step outside my comfort zone because somehow, when I wasn’t looking, that zone had become filled with discomfort, stress, worry and the physical manifestations that come along with this perpetual condition. Despite my successful career and beautiful family, I’d started taking yoga classes not because I love a good tree pose, but because I needed to slow down long enough to breathe — and it was getting harder and harder to do it on my own.
Travel is a paradoxical drug: It keeps me wired, buzzing, humming. Makes me feel alive. It scratches some primal itch to explore, meet, learn and answer questions I didn’t even know I had. Yet at the same time it brings me a calmness, clarity, focus and joy that no medication, or downward dog, ever could. I wanted to revisit places I’d been in my youth and see ones I’d never been before. Most of all, I wanted to spend time with husband and my kids who, at ages 4 and 8, had only ever vacationed with me in 7- to 10-day increments thanks to the U.S.’s pitiful corporate vacation policies. The four of us set out to do five countries in nine weeks. Here are some of our stories.
