Last week I ran into an acquaintance at a used bookstore. Jim is an artist – a sculptor – and an avid traveler, spending months every year in Southeast Asia. I asked how he was faring in the pandemic, and he said that he’s been working, reading a lot, watching old movies. Then he said, less encouragingly, “It’s the routine that gets to you.”
At first that sentence sounded strange; didn't he mean "monotony"? Routine, for most people, is a positive thing, what they establish to help them get through the day. But for travelers, it’s the burr that makes us hit the road. I remembered rather quickly that “break from routine” is the third of the seven joys of travel.
