Until 16 years ago I held jobs in the Philippines that sent me to various countries. In the beginning it was to learn the various facets of information technology. Later it became to study the pioneering IT applications that were replicated in the country— interbank ATM transactions, automation of the internal revenue system, electoral automation, and even e-procurement. But they never were the kind of travel that touched my traveler’s soul.

In 2004, fully burned out, lonely as a single parent of 20 years, and with all three daughters already working, I retired at 54 and migrated to Seattle. That was where my eldest daughter and three grandchildren lived. While babysitting the youngest, I was invited to teach business project management and “Diversity Issues in Business” at colleges and universities. I also volunteered as a small business counselor for SCORE, the Service Corps of Retired Executives.

As luck would have it, I “fashionably” met my “Knight in Shining Armor” on the Net and we married in 2008. He sold his business and took me RVing all over North America in an almost never-ending honeymoon. When I was no longer confined to trips defined by tasks, a certain kind of wanderlust became unleashed. I began to travel all over the map.

Surrounded by beauty, Butchart Garden in Vancouver Island, BC

Now already past 70, family and friends ask what keeps me going. In fact, they are horrified that I make “safe” trips even during these trying times. A supportive husband who also became a great travel buddy is one major reason. But my mother certainly became my early influence. Mommy had also been sent everywhere, starting with the Philippine government scholarship to the US to study how the deaf were educated and to bring the advances back to the country.

During her year-long grant, she sent letters to me and my four sisters. One letter came enclosed with dry gold, yellow, orange and red maple leaves that had fallen from trees in autumn. Deeply fascinated, I remember wondering if Mommy could also send some snow. I was eight. That was my travel defining moment.

Mommy also insisted that we eat a lot of chicken wings. I remember her serving it often and in countless different ways, as adobo, nilaga, tinola, afritada, ginataan, inihaw, arroz caldo, steak, barbeque, and, of course, fried. Perhaps like most of the old folks back then, she believed that this glorious chicken part would give anyone the “wings with which to fly the world.” In fact, she offered herself and all her journeys as undeniable proof. I was convinced and ate a ton.

And that’s not the end of the chicken story. There is one other confession I would like to make. You see I developed an intense liking for another chicken part. No, it wasn’t chicken breast in siopao, siomai, egg rolls, Chinese fried rice, or congee. My favorite Chinese dish is called “Phoenix Claws” (No wonder we chose to settle in Phoenix, Arizona!). It’s made from chicken feet that are fried, braised and simmered to perfection as tender, gelatinous and flavor-packed cartilage, skin, and bones. I got over the mental hurdle early and because it is extremely time-consuming to make, I automatically order it at a dim sum place.

Chicken wings gave me the zest to fly; chicken feet gave me the passion to roam the land. In fact, my first travel book Carolina: Cruising to an American Dream is all about my eight years of RVing around North America. And, probably because I have not stopped eating them and even if we had settled in Phoenix, the number of countries I have visited has risen to 48.

Colborn’s Cruising Past Seventy. It's Not Only about Outer Journeys. It's Also about Inner Ones — Colborn’s *Cruising Past Seventy. It's Not Only about Outer Journeys. It's Also about Inner Ones*

But during these trying times, I confess that I have reduced my intake of these glorious chicken parts to minimize the urge. And we now consider our car an extension of our safe home. We take drives to state, regional, and national parks that are open and even slow down when we find small towns with character. When there are no other people walking the trails, we get out of the car and rejoice in being close to nature. When cases of Covid-19 heated up in Phoenix, we also went to the lower risk mountain retreats of Utah and Colorado.

In taking these trips, we developed six rules for traveling safely based on the CDC guidelines of avoiding crowds, social distancing, preferring the outdoors, frequent hand washing and mask-wearing, especially when interacting with others that don’t belong to our bubble, including family:

1. Go to areas with lower incidences of Covid-19. There is plenty of data we can drill down to, up to zip codes. We have chosen places to go this way.

2. Meet only in uncrowded open-air spaces. Stick to restaurant patio seating, drive-in theaters, outdoor worship services, and hiking off-the-beaten-path trails.

3. Do not spend unreasonably long time with others. CDC’s guideline is no more than fifteen minutes. As long as we are outdoors, socially distanced and masked, our max is two hours.

4. Do not ride with others in the same vehicle. We travel in our car, eliminating planes, ships, trains, and buses in the meantime.

5. Do not share rooms with people not in your bubble. We don’t stay at our children’s homes and keep to separate units if we have to meet in resorts that are part of our timeshares where we are treated as homeowners.

6. Do not shake hands or hug. When we want to express some warmth, we elbow-bump for a second.

But the most important thing, now that we are not able to travel much during these trying times, is to remember the trips we have taken and the inner journeys—the lessons learned, the changes made, and the insights gained—that have resulted from them. Those are what will keep us good company for these trying times, satisfying our wanderlust in the meantime. And, even as I still eat chicken wings and chicken feet, let us do that in moderation these days.

Carolina Esguerra Colborn’s new book, Cruising Past Seventy. It's Not Only about Outer Journeys. It's Also about Inner Ones is available on Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/y22sfwds. It compiles her most widely-read posts on her travel blog, Cruising Past 70, plus six of the twenty-three articles she has written for TravelAwaits.

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