The creativity of traveling locally

I wrote this on LinkedIn, and wanted to share here.

Muppy writing his sidebar about dog-friendly travel at Mt Rainier

For the first time in 12 years, I co-wrote a guidebook for Lonely Planet. Instead of Umbria or Italy (or the Caribbean or the UK, et al), I wrote about the Cascades and Eastern Washington. And I learned some things I wanted to share with all y'all.

I've been teaching creativity now for almost as long, and I kept a side notebook while I was researching. We think of travel as this exotic thing, as going to the farthest away places to give us that jolt of newness. But I got that same jolt in Eastern Washington. It just came from a different place.

In many ways, travel in a foreign locale is easier. You don't have to do anything, the creativity and newness is everywhere. Travel nearby -- especially to places not over-popularized -- *takes* creativity. This is one of the reasons I loved being a guidebook author. You can't cover a place if you look at it on the first layer only. What's the second layer? How about the third? What can I learn about my own backyard that's different to my preconceptions?

Just in Northeastern Washington alone, I ate bison and huckleberry frybread at Indigenous Eats in Spokane. I shot a can with a rifle for the first time at Human Nature Hunting and learned about how far removed away I am from the food I eat. I picked serviceberries from different trees at Quillisascut Farm, and realized for the first time ever that fruit from different trees could taste radically different from each other. I dug for fossils at the Stonerose Fossil Center, and learned all about the ice age Missoula Floods from driving the Coulee Corridor.

I know more about my own state and what makes it tick. I'll still travel internationally (my in-laws are in Finland, after all), but I'm happy to know I can challenge myself to be even *more* creative when I travel in my own home state. As sightseeing wanes, I think (I hope!) these immersive experiences will start to take its place. Doing rather than looking. Third layer rather than first layer.