Journey of No Distractions: An Intro to BiGTRiP V
Every year since 2021, I’ve circled 10-14 days on my calendar for a big trip – an annual quest I’ve aptly titled BiGTRiP – as I intentionally seek more wonders in this world but also shed distraction for a couple weeks, living more simply, more adventurously, and more contemplatively. More presently.
I take these big trips by myself, and while wandering solo I often ask myself: How can I affirm all the things I’m doing well in my life right now, and where can I tweak or perhaps discard some other things altogether?
I bring a journal and open a running notes doc on my phone, and I pour out my heart.
I do get lonely at times on these solitary escapades, but I also find gratitude in being able to go where I want to go, do what I want to do, and be who I am without any other voice speaking into the trip. I’ve been challenged in recent years to find opportunities to travel with people on a smaller scale, because relationships are two-way streets where you always give up something to get something else — your agenda, your way, for our agenda, our way.
Shared experience can be a beautiful thing.
But BiGTRiP is annual adventure just for me. Once a year, I’m reassured by this blissful chance to escape the noise. This world is so, so loud; it only gets louder each year. Whenever I look ahead to ponder my next BiGTRiP location, I ask myself: Where can I truly escape and return to nature? The roots of civilization and soul?
It helps that I’ve become a national park nut in the last decade with a goal to visit all 63 in this country, and perhaps a bunch of parks in other countries, too.
BiGTRiP has taken me to some glorious locations these last five years: the “other side” of California from lush Lake Tahoe to sweltering Death Valley, the Olympic Peninsula of Washington, the Maritime provinces and national parks of Canada, and all over freaking Alaska. Gorgeous, all of these places.
I’ve seen a lot in five years, and I’ve learned a lot. I’ve become a better man every time I’ve left my laptop at home, and paused my work and mindless scrolling alike, growing even a breath and a step more present in my wanderings.
This year for BiGTRiP V, I flew to Las Vegas to rent a car and drive all over Utah and eastern Nevada to visit six national parks — a new personal record for park visits in such a span of time. I booked this trip several months ago without giving much thought to some logistics – namely, that mid-August temperatures in this region would top out at 105 Fahrenheit.
Oops.
No matter, I reassured myself; I’d just treat this year’s BiGTRiP as a literal wilderness journey. I stocked up on water jugs and electrolytes and salty snacks, and I got the supersized spray sunscreen bottle.
This year, more than any other, I would escape to the undistracted wilderness and return to civilization a different man.
…or would I?
I know I haven’t been blogging consistently on my website for a while. My first blog of 2025 is finally coming in…September? Good heavens. Don’t tell 2011 Tom.
My goal for the rest of this dwindling year is to return to some sort of form – just one of my takeaways from BiGTRiP V. I want to write about my wilderness journey from Vegas to Moab and back over a series of posts, and I also want to flip the calendar back to March of this year when I embarked with my church to the Dominican Republic, my first-ever missions trip experience. I’ve already written about that week on my laptop and simply need to fine-tune some stories for this blog.
I want to end 2025 by stepping back into what brings me life: telling my stories, especially those stories I find when I leave what I know for the unknown.
Because magic happens when we un-distract ourselves.
Alas, the question is always: Will we allow ourselves the discomfort that comes with un-distraction? The new silence, the overtaking restlessness? What if magic is waiting there for us in that awful stillness, eager to be found, if only we’ll wait one more moment?
Wouldn’t that be something to behold?
