A road less travelled..

If your all about the destination then take a fecking flight……..We’re going no where slowly but we’re seeing all the sights.

If Frank Turner was referring to the inside of a dozen or so Galway pubs then we have truly been taking it slowly and seeing all the sights!

This is the morning after the first night of Jimbotours number 15 and I am sitting on my own having a coffee in a Galway city hostel whilst my fellow travellers sleep off the consequences of a long day yesterday. It’s raining outside and before I rise the troops to explore this vibrant city I am taking a moment to think about this tour and all the previous tours and why we do this every year and why it’s so important.

The longer the annual pilgrimage to a new city and country goes on the more it becomes less about the city we go to and more about the people and the reconnection with this little snippet of travelling life. Someone once told me in a hostel that “we travel not to escape life but for life not to escape us” and I think this is so true. Over the last 2 decades we’ve been doing this we have all changed…..some years we’ve have been happy in life and some years life has been setting us challenges. There has been relationship trouble, marriages, children, new careers,  new houses, football team promotions and relegations and at these times the tours feel and mean different things to us. It is very easy for life to get on top of us and affect us - these tours are a brief moment to stop. Think. Reflect. Move forward.

The attendees my sometimes change and the destination and activities always do but the one constant is that we are here for each other in good times and bad. No matter the destination we walk, we talk, sometimes we are silent, sometimes we sing, we process, we share our dreams for the future. It’s important , guys aren’t good at doing that and it’s not about how cold the beer is, how beautiful the churches are or how juicy the fruit and veg is - it’s cathartic.

The Dalia Lama said ‘once a year go somewhere you’ve never been before’ I intend to take the great man up in that!

Anyway we are off to swim in the Atlantic and see what surprises Galway and Jimbotours has in store for us today.

Jimbo the therapist signing out.