There is a lot of stuff happening in my life right now, and it will leak over to HeidiTown.com. The day I got back from my presentation in Fort Morgan, I got some unhappy medical news. I flew to Medford, Oregon, immediately, and spent Mother’s Day with my mom, dad and brother. I’ll write more on that later, but I’ll leave it there for now.

In other news, the travel world is in upheaval right now. After doing this for over 18 years, I am well-connected to the industry, especially on LinkedIn, where the sky is falling. Seriously, the people on that social media network are freaking out or trying not to.
Beer Festival With A Twist: Wellington Brewfest & Wine Tasting
The news now features story after story about how people are cutting back on summer travel. In fact, I just saw a story about it this morning. I get email after email from research companies (I’m on a lot of media lists) giving me the scary stats on American travel.
Unrest and uncertainty are never good. It leads to knee-jerk reactions, and it frightens.

Last night, we returned from a 1200-mile road trip. I will be writing about it extensively. Our yearly anniversary road trip was inspired by several books we have listened to recently on Audible (as our anniversary road trips often are). They were about the ancient and not-so-ancient southwest, including Chaco Canyon and other places we didn’t know existed. We realized they are only a day’s drive away, so we went to investigate for ourselves.
Dust Bowl Road Trip: The Reasons Why
For us, living in the Front Range of Colorado, everything we bought in New Mexico felt like it was on sale. We even had to buy eggs, because we had decided to make breakfast a couple of days at our Airbnb, and they were $3.99 for a dozen.
Meals were $3 to $6 less per entree, and we never paid more than $6 for a craft beer, which is almost unheard of in Colorado.

Gas was not cheaper, unfortunately, since it was a road trip. Chaco Cultural National Historic Park is nearly an hour and a half from Farmington, but unless camping, it’s one of the closest places to stay when exploring Chaco Canyon. We stayed in a delightful downtown Farmington Airbnb (for $125 a night in May).
My point is that while people may be cutting back on big and fancy trips they had planned to Europe or Disneyland, why aren’t people looking out their back door for amazing things they can drive to?

Stop thinking about how exciting it will be to post a selfie in front of the Eiffel Tower. Do you realize that this country has castles? For real. In Chaco Canyon (and in other places around the American Southwest), there are American Castles built by the Ancient Puebloans.

The beauty of the west, my road trip neighborhood, and where I grew up, rivals anywhere in the world. And when times get tough, when we have mere pennies in the bank, think smaller. Thinking smaller doesn’t mean it can’t be just as fantastic as fjords or the Eiffel Tower. Farmington, New Mexico, may not seem as stylish as Paris, France, but I’m telling you that we just had a wonderful road trip to that area (where we saw what I have deemed to be American Castles).

I guarantee there are interesting places in your area. You may have never even heard of it. I hadn’t heard of Chaco until a year ago. So, while travel may change for many people over the next year or several years, don’t overlook or underestimate the power of the road trip. Travel isn’t dead. Travel isn’t an Instagram post. Let travel happen to you. Get out there and drive!