Life is too short to stay in one place

These last two days have been awash with emails and phone calls and texts and Facebook messages in an attempt to take advantage of Wizz Air’s 20% discount on all flights and flight+hotel packages out of Budapest. Had they (Wizz) not emailed me and told me that this offer was available, I’d have been none the wiser and might have been somewhat more productive than I have been in the last 48 hours.

I had my heart set on five days in Cyprus but that wasn’t to be. Those I asked weren’t free or had been there before and were in no rush to go back or couldn’t give the immediate commitment I needed. Cluj was another option – it’s high on my list for 2015 – but again, there was little interest out there. Sofia, too.

A chance email about something completely unrelated opened up a conversation with one friend on travel. Negotiations started. Cities were considered and discounted. We needed somewhere neither of us had been before so we settled on Naples. The fact that I’m going to Italy for a week in April was neither here nor there. Flights were booked. Advantage was taken of the 20% discount, and I’m already scheduling my carb days to allow copious slices of pizza. Mission accomplished. Need to travel satisfied.

Then last night, I ran into another friend who was having a similar itch to go somewhere new. Anywhere. Just for a weekend. The ‘I couldn’t possibly justify another trip in March’ crossed my mind but was so fleeting it didn’t gain any traction. I remembered a hotel voucher I had for the K&K hotel group and thought of Paris. They’ve never been. I’ve been but years ago  and I didn’t like it. I’ve been promising it a second try for decades.  So we’re booked.

I blame it all on the Wizz Air marketing department. It’s their fault. What can I say? Some women spend their money on designer shoes and handbags – I prefer to spend mine on airplane seats and hotel rooms – when they’re on sale, of course. Life is too short to stay in one place. And as Robert Louis Stevenson supposedly said: I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.