The Cost of Travel: Or, You can't have your cake and eat it too

Life has lots of conundrums.  You can't be this if you choose that.  You either have youth or you have wisdom.  You can't be single and married both.  It goes on and on, but you get my point.....

Travel is like that.  You either have the time or you have the money.  When you are young you have the time, the energy, and the freedom but quite often no money.  When you are older you have more money but, at least for me, time is precious.  I'm still working and I only get two weeks vacation.  To "spend" it all on a vacation seems like a big 'cost'.  Money is still an issue, of course, but we're using frequent flier miles and taking the tube/bus in London; staying at a very moderate hotel (even by London standards), etc, etc.  We aren't high rollers...we're middle class conservatives....We chose B&Bs rather than hotels because they are less expensive and they also give a more intimate look at the country and the locals.  Hopefully, we'll meet some nice people and make new friends.  That choice was an easy one.

With all the research we found some of the other lovely places that we could have stayed at:  manor houses and lovely Inns that cost 500 GBP per night.  Tickets to some of the London musicals that ran 150 GBP each.  Again, mildly tempting but not really a sacrifice to forego.

No, for me, this trip is all about the cost of my time.  My precious, precious time.  This will mean two weeks less time to do other mini-trips--perhaps to go see my granddaughter, or spend more time at my annual high school girlfriends reunion, or take a trip to the west coast to see the wine country.  There is just so much time and that's all there is.  It makes me want to retire so there would be LOTS of time.  But then there would be no money (or lots less money).  Conundrum. 

And at this point, we've committed to the trip and I'm looking forward completely to it.  So, I'm paying the price in time in order to have this experience.  When it's completed it will be mine forever.