Originally published on July 29, 2016. I’m re-publishing posts I’d had on this blog that, due to some glitch of the internet, got scrubbed. No editing has been done.

We were tourists in Iceland. In Ireland we became travelers.

We were devouring our breakfast in the weak Dublin sunshine when I first wondered if we counted as long-term travelers yet. To our right, three Irish women huddled in gossip over their 2euro coffees before work. To our left, a rough-shod man pulled his well-worn shoes on to greet the day. He had likely slept there – for the night because he had no home or for a few hours because he had too many beers, I couldn’t guess.

We watched Dublin, rumpled and sleepy, try to shake its people awake, like someone snapping a sheet over a bed. Slowly the city unfurled, dressed, and went to work another day.

I was happy. My grocery store yogurt was good, and milky coffee was even better. We perched on the small metallic benches in the mountains of our bags. Some small unspoken rite of passage came and went, and it was just the beginning.

We would come through several more rites of passage and travelers’ tests in our week in Ireland. From Dublin to Galway to Wexford, we ate cheap, wore wrinkled clothes, became our own guides, got lost, and made up our own routes home.

Five days in France, and I’m reminded how little we actually know. Nevertheless, here are a few of the small lessons we thought we learned:

There is always too much stuff

I spent months creating mock packing lists for this trip. I consulted travel blogs, Pinterest, and my poor friends constantly. One or two sports bras? Can I bring cleats? How many skirts are too many skirts? I fake packed my 45L backpack again and again. I made decisions that seemed tough then and seem silly now.

I knew what I was doing. I was reassuring myself. Four months is a long time to travel, and I can’t know what will happen, even now. There was so much I couldn’t predict or plan about the trip, but I could plan what I would be wearing. Facing a sea of uncontrollable elements, I burrowed into the facet I could control.

It took only four days for me to resent my backpack and the wardrobe I had so carefully stuffed inside. Repacking was a hassle, and my cherished belongings barely fit. Mike was already carrying a few of my things, and I stubbornly refused to let him take more.

Dublin gained three pairs of my underwear and a bralet. Galway was gifted with a tank top and some toiletries. A pair of sandals is currently in purgatory, and some toiletries may not survive northern France.

Some long-term travelers write pompously about shedding half their belongings when they began traveling. They don’t need possessions when they’re seeing so much of the world! They preach that we should all focus on the experiences we’re having, not the things we’re carrying.

I like my belongings, thank you very much. I come from a proud line of packrats. I still miss that bralet, and I wonder if that tank top would have come in handy… oh well. My pack isn’t perfect, but it’s better. I’m learning.

For those keeping count, Mike packed once and hasn’t had any issues. Men, honestly.

Of weather and transit

One of my favorite episodes of This American Life featured one of the producer’s mothers, who believed there were seven topics you weren’t supposed to talk about: money, your period, your diet, your health, how you slept, what you dreamed, and how you got someplace (traffic, your route, etc.).

The list could apply just as well to writing, particularly the final topic. I’ll add weather to the list, too. Unless something remarkable happens, I don’t really want to expand on the weather or our transit experiences. Both are the tasteless calories we have to endure as part of our days.

I will say – once, and early enough that you can say I told you so months from now – that traveling abroad in 2016 is significantly easier than it ever was when I was younger. A smartphone makes deciphering European timetables and reading maps much, much simpler. My plan-stress-then-plan-more nature has been appeased by an abundance of apps, accessible WIFI, and Google Maps.

Weather? Colder than expected. We didn’t care. On to more exciting things.

Plan where you’ll sleep… and nearly nothing else

Not a new philosophy for Mike and me. Since our first impromptu road trip into the Kentucky wilds, we’ve played our adventures by ear.

We always had someplace to set down our thermaliners and our bags, even if the locations got creative. I booked our hostel in Galway 15 minutes before the bus deposited us in the swarming city square. We spent our next two Galway nights huddled on a grungy pullout couch in a French couple’s darkly lit, dusty flat. Why? It was free.

But we don’t focus on why. Instead four years of traveling by the seat of our pants has created a shared instinct between us to first think: why not?

Why not check out the Cliffs of Moher?

We woke up early to catch the cheap bus, and we exited early when a sign promised a trail. Why not?

742 cows, 125 photos, 8 miles, and 2 hours later, we discovered the actual cliffs we had come to see. Another 313 cows, 7 miles, and 4 hours later, we returned home on the last bus out.

Why not invite the young American girl at our hostel out with us?

The night brought the three of us to a silent disco, dancing with glorious, homesick abandon to Chance the Rapper in a sea of Irish and foreign revelers like us. The night ended the way every night should: with flopping, greasy slices of pizza at 2am.

Why not accept her offer to take us horseback riding?

We pretended to guide large, loping Irish horses while they carried us along lovingly overgrown country lanes. Green Galway pastures rolled away in every direction. Old stone walls upheld the myth of structure and order. Even older watchtower ruins told us nothing human lasts forever.