It happened again. When planning out each reason to be thankful, I never thought writing about opportunities to travel would come on the first snowfall of the season in Washington, DC. The season of fall, which in my perfect dream should NOT include SNOW! But a great reminder for me to check my gratitude, and for that I am sharing another reason I am thankful of this military life.
Since mentioning the weather, I should mention that before moving to the DC area, we lived in Okinawa, Japan. To make my point and save you a quick google search, Okinawa is a subtropical island and DC, well it is snowing before Thanksgiving. We moved here Labor Day weekend two years ago, the beginning of the Fall season. I had no idea how much I really loved Fall until spending that first season here. I am not a huge fan of cold, so today’s snow weather would usually make me grumble (and I did a little), but honestly today I did enjoy the coziness and warmth of my home as I watched the snow fall outside. I love that the military life has the opportunities to live and travel to different climates. Different climates mean different scenery and we have traveled to some amazing places with scenery that looks like a postcard.
The obvious travel is being stationed overseas, such as Okinawa like us. I have several friends who have lived on mainland, Japan. I have some very lucky friends that have lived in places all over Europe! You know the question that comes up as an icebreaker at every single spouses event: Where would your dream duty station be? My answer, is always somewhere in Europe! I am not too picky, as I love that I can travel within Europe fairly easy. I also have friends that get the rare but really awesome duty stations like my friend living her best life in Australia currently. So being able to travel and live in foreign countries is a great thing to be thankful of this military life.
So back to why “somewhere in Europe” is my dream duty station. Well I have a list of reasons, but my biggest on is the chance I got visit Italy. I would go back in an instant! My friends that have lived and visited England, Germany, and other places in Europe say the same. My trip to Italy was completely thanks to this military life. My husband was deployed on a MEU (big ship floating around to multiple places) and three weeks before they were due to be home, he called and said they were porting in Naples, Italy next and wanted to fly me out to see him and spend a couple of days exploring Italy. I know fairytale dream, right? Well I was a bucket of emotions, this was 8 months into the deployment, I had a 6 month old baby who he had yet to meet, oh and he wanted me to fly out the NEXT day! Nerves were everywhere, well of course I went. My husband’s teammate booked his wife a flight too, my friend and deployment buddy. So the two of us scrambled childcare for our children and hopped on a plane to Italy to spend the weekend with our husbands. A much-needed vacation, a trip that we will never forget. It felt very much like a fairytale, having to remind myself it was real life. All because of this military life and the spontaneous decision to go where they were. I am so thankful for that travel opportunity and the chance to make a memories that will last forever.
More big travel opportunities for us have been because of “Space-A” travel. I have mentioned some of our trips in other posts. This opportunity is completely thanks to this military life, a perk I am thankful I was able to utilize on more than one occasion. While living overseas, you have the perfect opportunity to travel to places you probably would not get the chance to normally. For example, from Japan, it is fairly simple to Space-A to Korea for a quick trip to explore and get back. I was very fortunate to use Space-A to fly all the way to North Carolina from Okinawa. That is a rare flight to find, but I am so thankful for the military life for the opportunity and making that an option for travel. I was also able to hop flights back and forth to mainland, Japan to visit friends and explore. Other families could do the same flying down from mainland. I don’t want to go into all the details of Space-A in this post, but there are several posts out there written by others about Space-A and I encourage you to check them out.
Traveling does not have to be international. For most of us, we are not going to be stationed in the town you grew up in. And for some, you may be on the other side of the country. So that means there are built-in travel destinations of where you move. Find a new place within driving distance on the weekend and check it out. There are state and national parks all over, start with the city/town you live in and become tourists for a day and try something new. There is also another great thing about this military life that makes traveling that much more accessible. The military has several long weekends throughout the year, you don’t have to use every single one, but there are plenty of opportunities. Pick a new place and go during the weekend. This is a common reason of why people do not travel is because of time. I am thankful of this military life to give us these long weekends to allow us to travel to new places. I am always shocked when I hear adults are visiting the ocean for the first time in their life and I have to remind myself that may not have been easy growing up somewhere like Oklahoma. I am thankful the military life gives the opportunity to travel short or long distances to places I wouldn’t normally think to visit.
Another fun short trip for us was when my husband flew me out over a long weekend to Yuma, Arizona when he was there for a couple of months for a training exercise. We spent the time exploring the small town of Yuma, saw a movie and enjoyed the change of scenery of North Carolina. We didn’t have to do some big vacation-like things. I am thankful for that opportunity to visit him and visit a place I doubt would ever be on a destination list for many people. (Side note, Yuma is a stateside duty station we would happily go to, we loved visiting there)
Just a helpful tip if you are curious of another way the military life makes it easier to travel, most military installations have hotels you and your family can stay in. These are all over the world, and you do not have to be stationed there, or even know someone to stay there. So that means, if you do not get that dream duty station, then find some leave or a long weekend, and BOOK A TRIP! That’s definitely a perk to be thankful for of this military life.
