Rachel McMillan - Dream, Plan, and Go: A Travel Guide to Inspire Your Independent Adventure

Table of Contents

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

EUGENE, OREGON

Cover and interior design by Studio Gearbox

Some of the names have been changed to protect others privacy.

Dream, Plan, and Go

Text copyright 2020 by Rachel McMillan, artwork copyright 2020 by Laura L. Bean

Published by Harvest House Publishers

Eugene, Oregon 97408

www.harvesthousepublishers.com

ISBN 978-0-7369-7969-6 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-0-7369-7970-2 (eBook)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

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FOR MY SISTER,

LEAH,

WHO LOVINGLY MAKES

THE WORLD A SMALLER PLACE

Contents

Adventure is worthwhile in itself .

AMELIA EARHART

F or centuries, to uphold her reputation and be acceptable in polite society, a woman couldnt be seen in public without a suitable companion. In the film Miss Potter, author and illustrator Beatrix Potter cant meet with her publisher without a chaperone. In A Room with a View, Lucy Honeychurchs cousin, Charlotte Bartlett, must accompany her to see the ruins and grandeur of Italy.

Today, though, women can venture to a local performance or restaurant alone without drawing attention to themselves. Not only that, but they can see the whole of the world on their own. Yet how often do they take the opportunity to wander a foreign city or even see a movie or a play or check out a restaurant without a companion?

When was the last time you took yourself out on a dateif ever?

Not only do I think we should take advantage of our freedom as women in an age when being in only our own company is acceptable, but I believe we should embrace the adventures we can find near and far.

While its necessary to be aware of the challenges of being a solo womanespecially when travelingand while precautions and common sense must direct our opportunities, those opportunities are endless. When I talk to women about my passion for going out into the world alone, whether near or far, I commonly hear many of them say theyre waiting for a boyfriend or husbanda perfect man, a perfect partnered opportunityto experience what interests them both locally and abroad. I confess, until I was in my late twenties, this was very much at the forefront of my mind too, which is why no one was more surprised than I was when I took myself on a honeymoon to Vienna.

No More Waiting

The Billy Joel song I had loved since childhood promised Vienna was waiting for me, but I no longer wanted to wait for it. Id been waiting since I was ten years old, the splendid Austrian capital not only my dream city but also my dream honeymoon destination. I wanted to experience the scents of pastries from the Demel Konditorei spilling onto the cobblestones of Kohlmarkt. The bells of Stephansdom, the cathedral towering over the city, tolling among the shoppers on the Grabens pedestrian walkway. Manicured green shrubs bordering the Kunsthistorisches Museum while music from the Musikverein concert hall and the Staatsoper opera house flooded over a city once home to the greatest composers of the Baroque and Classical periods.

In my imagination, no place in the world could hold a candle to the opulent city ornamented by the grandeur of the Hapsburg Empire of long ago. As a hopeless romantic with the dream of visiting a hopelessly romantic city, I determined my dashing prince would be as excited to play ring around the Ringstrasse, the circular boulevard at the center of Viennas famed first district, as I was. We would ramble under buttery-tinted rooftops and explore Mozarthaus Vienna museum and eat Sachertorte, the famously rich chocolate cake named for the hotel. I didnt even mind forgoing everything but a breakfast and a chamber orchestra made up of my friends from high school band if it meant our wedding funds could be transferred to a Viennese honeymoon.

Vienna waited through high school as I taped pictures from magazines on my locker door. It waited through college as backpacking friends sent me postcards I framed and placed in my bachelor apartment. Then in my late twenties, still single, a thought struck: What if I never married? What would happen to my idyllic Viennese honeymoon? If I didnt have a husband to take me to Vienna, would I never see Vienna? I decided I would go by the time I was 30. If Prince Charming showed up, fine. If not, I would purchase a German phrase book and set off solo. Vienna would wait no longer.

That first trip to Vienna became a symbol of my decision never to wait for a companion to pursue a dreamhowever big or small the scale. It can be intimidating for women to step out on our own and grab at a chance. It can be discouraging to tweak a desired dream when life doesnt work out the way we planned, when the errant prince doesnt show up or the best friend who had been so keen on a trip together is now bound to family obligations.

I spent my first time in Austria during a stickily hot summer week with a journal under my arm and a caffeinated excitement attributed to my determination to try at least a dozen different kinds of coffee. I didnt have a man by my side, and the trip wasnt a celebration of my marriage, but I was drenched in romantic moments. I courted a city steeped in history while fumbling my way through hiccupped German words that sat awkwardly in my Canadian accent.

A lovely young man named Klaus, described in an email to my sister as having sun-licked brown hair, saved me from lugging my suitcase aimlessly around the Museumsquartier, a gorgeous green span populated by every museum imaginable. I had confused the street Breitgasse with the street Breitsgasse, the latter home to my hotel. I used the recommendations he wrote in my Moleskine notebook to fall into Viennas rhythm, which emulated the three-quarter time popularized by its famous waltz. I sampled Sachertorte and attended concerts and lost myself down alleyways and through the grand gardens of Schnbrunn Palace and Schloss Belvedere, another fairy-tale palace.