This week my brother Glenn stopped in for an overnight at our house on his way south for a four- to six-week sojourn in Costa Rica. In the past two years Glenn, who only just turned 60, has retired and lost his wife to cancer, and he’s been considering where and how he’ll spend the next chapter of his life. Depending on his experiences and the information he gathers on this trip, Costa Rica may become his new home at some point in the future. I told him I admired his openness to such a “grand adventure,” and he related a story from a trip he took to Europe last summer.

Glenn was about two weeks in to a planned six-week ramble that began in Spain, brought him to Portugal and would then wind up through the United Kingdom. He was in Porto, and having spent a long day exploring the city, was standing in line waiting to take the trolley back up the river’s steep banks to his hotel on the hill above. On this first trip abroad, alone and having spoken little English in the past two weeks, he admitted to feeling pretty down and seriously considering bagging the rest of the trip and heading home.

Glenn gestured to a young woman pushing a bike with a flat (cobblestones are tough on bike tires!) that she should board the crowded trolley ahead of him, saying that he could catch a later trolley if need be. She thanked him — in English! — and they both got on for the short ride. At the top, Glenn offered to help her get the bike further uphill, as he was headed in that direction and was so thrilled to be able to carry on a conversation in English with someone. Eventually, they ended up at a café, sharing a few beers and a few hours’ of talk.

She was a German architect on a six-week holiday, having biked all the way from her home in Cologne. Glenn, who worked most of his life in construction, exclaimed over six weeks of paid vacation, and she expressed amazement over his experience of “you don’t work, you don’t get paid.” In the course of their conversation, Glenn shared his situation and his misgivings about his journey. He said this young lady then said six simple words which transformed his whole outlook, not only on this trip but on his future, as well: “You can do whatever you want.”

It took the straightforward observation of a relative stranger and fellow traveler to point out to him that he had the means, time and health to make of his life what he wished. Needless to say, he took that message to heart, continued his travels and had a marvelous time.

Travel does that for us; it opens our horizons and pushes us out of our shells, helping us see not only the world but ourselves in a new light.

— Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editor