I also have a life, i work part-time, my partner works full time (in social work incidentally!)and we have a 7 year old daughter. So far this year we have visited Germany, France,Spain,Norway,Greece and in 2 weeks we are going to brussels, amserdam & paris. I live for my travels and am very lucky as i work in a school so i get all the uk school holidays, my partner gets 7 weeks a year, and our daughter has much more life experience than your average 7 yr old. We do not usually take packages so planning independent travel is a lot of the fun, well you have to live life...

Thought this was relevant to another thread

People at work say to me, "We can always tell when you're planning a trip: you have a big smile on your face." Yeah, I love it. My heart races when I see an airplane in the sky; my breathing becomes shallow with the Sunday travel section. It's like madness - some think you should be locked up, others think you're communing with the gods, living on another plane, at one with the universe. If others don't understand, pity them.

Amen, Shanna!

I love to travel. It makes me complete. I am happiest when I finally get on that plane and head off for my destination. Luckily, my wife shares my passion. When we are not traveling we are talking about past trips and/or planning our next. Of coures, we have other interests that we are involved in, but travel is by far our biggest passion. We both work at jobs that we are not especially happy in, but thanks to our income level we are able to travel extensively. Our biggest constraint is time, not money. Our dream is to be able to retire with the financial means to continue our travels well into the future until we are just too old and feeble to do so, and I really don't think we will ever reach that point. I can look into the future and see the two of us, all gray and wrinkled, using canes or whatever, holding hands and watching the sun set over some fabulous European landscape, and then retiring to the nearest pub for a pint and a good pub dinner. I only hope heaven (assumes we get there!) offers a good travel plan....

Lila, this is a terrific thread. I too love to travel and find the planning almost as much fun as the trip itself. I love my job (though I don't make much money at it yet), adore where I live (outside Seattle, which is so beautiful and the only negative to me is that the flight to Europe is so much longer from here than the East Coast), but I find traveling is my "high". My husband isn't as enthusiastic, yet when he goes, he enjoys himself. I agree with the posters that it's a shame the U.S. doesn't typically offer month vacations as they do in Europe. I was a professor in a "past life" and that was one of the perks--longer vacations.<BR><BR>Another side to this that no one has mentioned yet--when I was in my twenties I was pretty much a "gypsy"--went around the world and did almost nothing but travel for 3 straight years. Then I started longing for "a home"--a place to stay and to not travel for awhile. Has this happened to anyone?<BR><BR>Also, our last trip to Europe was for one month, and I actually was ready to come home by day 29 (which I was happy about). Yet, I'm planning another trip now and even trying to learn Spanish. I see this as positive because I keep learning more--from books, this website, etc. I'm so glad we can share our experiences here.

Wouldn't worry about it to much <BR>Can’t do nothin about this crutch<BR>Could it be an extra chromosomes? <BR>One way or another<BR>I got from my mother<BR><BR><BR>