Remember When Travel Was Just…Fun?Plan this with us

Remember When Travel Was Just…Fun?

A personal reflection on rediscovering the fun, play, and curiosity that first sparked a love of travel.

Four people in sun hats and trail clothes leap at the same moment above a flat white plain under a deep blue sky
Jumping for joy with new friends on the Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia, 2006

Remember When Travel Was Just…Fun?

Not a moral assignment. Not some epic life transformation. Just fun.

To feel stoked by a new place.

A new adventure.

To meet someone weird from another culture and completely dig hanging out with them?

To mess up your order at a back-alley food stall and either love it—or hate it—and laugh anyway.

Lately, I’ve allowed my social feeds to make me feel like travel has to save the world. Or your soul.

And if it doesn’t? It’s not worthy.

That’s a lot of pressure to put on a 10-day vacay.

What happened to joy?

What happened to play?

To laughing until your stomach aches?

Travel did transform me.

But not because I set out to be transformed.

I left on a bicycle 20 years ago and just…never came back.

Gregg Bleakney rides a loaded bicycle along a beach toward a man in red shorts beside a small boat marked Tour Sámara
Meeting a new amigo in Costa Rica, 2006

Now I speak in a different language, live in a culture I wasn’t born into, and married a woman from the other side of the world.

My creative company, WhereNext Creative, has helped lead some of the most significant regenerative and community-first tourism projects on the planet.

My travel business, WhereNext DMC, operates as a luxury DMC in Latin America, offering rare access to places and people that most travelers never get to experience. We’re pushing to build the most trusted luxury-focused, community-first company in the region.

But that was never the plan.

The plan was fun. Adventure. Curiosity.

Nothing more.

I’ve learned that when we pursue joy, play, and creating memories with people we love, the journey often outgrows what we imagined it could be.

And that’s the magic of travel.

#FeelSomething

Brooks Allen in a cactus costume with his arms raised behind a rusty, sticker-covered car hood, with desert and sea behind
#FunHogging in Baja, Mexico, 2005
Gregg Bleakney
Written by

WhereNext Founder and CEO. Gregg loves telling stories, ditching logic, and spending time with his wife on their cacao farm in Colombia’s Andean rainforest.

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