Now that we have resumed life in the lower 48, a question often presented to us is: “What was the highlight of your summer in Alaska?”
Slow Traveling…
It’s a tough question as we loved EVERYTHING and every one of our 68 days adventuring through Alaska. Although many days and experiences stand out as “most epic,” my Alaska highlight was not a specific day, hike, activity, encounter, place, or person that we met but rather a takeaway that emerged from our journey and time spent slowly wandering through the Last Frontier as “slow travelers.”
This summer in Alaska changed our lives! We met a never-ending flurry of like-minded souls that outrank nature, recreation, wilderness, and the Alaskan lifestyle over luxury items, the rat race, “success,” wealth, careers, and affluence. Life in Alaska is SIMPLE, although most people’s daily lives involve a remarkable amount of HARD work. People are happy actively exploring and just being outside, amongst nature, and with each other.
Seasonal Workers, Wanderers, and Nomads: A New Concept to Us…
It was both eye-opening and awe-inspiring meeting and connecting with people that travel and work seasonally with only a backpack and a goal to experience nature and our planet’s natural wonders and cultures. These nomads have little concern and interest in settling down, establishing roots, or building a nest egg, and they do not prioritize healthcare (gulp!). They live for the present and take seasonal jobs that afford them this simple but active and adventurous lifestyle full of growth, discoveries, and explorations. Never have I ever met so many wanderers, explorers, and adventurers in one place. What a foreign and MIND-BLOWING concept, and what an inspiring way to travel through life!
Careers, $$, Material Objects and Happiness…
Our Alaskan summer solidified what I had already suspected to be true. We are not all meant to live that traditional lifestyle where one has the safety net of a career path, plan, and end goal in mind, an urban loft in the city, or a home with 2.3 children playing within the confines of a white picket fence… Some of us are happiest wandering and JUST BEING – in nature, on the road, exploring, discovering with each other or even on our own, living for the now and not for the weekend, that summer vacation, or our future “secure” retirements. There is more than one happy place out there and more than one way to arrive there and achieve it.
Thank you, Alaska, for the many brief moments as well as the extended encounters and exchanges with your settlers and visitors, for your simple majestic beauty, for letting us marvel and take in your wondrous wilderness, for exposing us to this unimposing lifestyle & MOSTLY more than anything else, for helping us finally arrive here!
And by here…
I’m referring to a “place,” a state of mind, where we, too, have realized why and how our priorities will shift for this next chapter of our lives.
Welcome to our next chapter, Life 2.0!
Wake Wander Repeat 🙂
For more information on seasonal jobs, click on this blog post from my guest blog writer Paige…
