In retrospect, hopping on a bus from St. Petersburg, Russia to Tallinn, Estonia with nothing more than my passport and some cash was mildly crazy. But at the time, it seemed perfectly logical.

We all have those moments when we travel. There’s something about being in a new country that makes us more daring, more willing to be spontaneous. Then we return to home to our routines and that willingness to get off the beaten path fades.

But it doesn’t have to. In fact, I think we could all learn to live our lives more like a 20-year-old in Estonia.

A Spontaneous Thanksgiving Weekend in Estonia

It was Friday, November 26, 2004 –the day between Thanksgiving Day proper and our planned Russian-American-British-Finnish-German Thanksgiving extravaganza.

Elizabeth and I grabbed our passports and cash and headed to the bus station to buy tickets to Tallinn, Estonia. The plan was to leave the next morning, a Saturday, so we could celebrate Thanksgiving on Friday with our fellow study abroad students.

Of course, nothing goes as planned in St. Petersburg, Russia. When we arrived at the bus station, we were told they were sold out of tickets for Saturday. In fact, they only had tickets left for one bus the rest of the weekend. It left in an hour.

We paused to consider. It would take more than an hour to get back to our dorm, grab our bags, and return to the bus station. We would have to be crazy to head across the border to Estonia on such short notice. “What the heck?” we decided. “We’ll take two tickets.”

And with that, we spontaneously headed to Tallinn, Estonia without so much as a toothbrush, a change of clothes, or a hostel reservation. We called our resident advisor to let her know of our newly hatched plan and she sighed and wished us well.

photo credit: ezioman

In Retrospect, Jumping on the Bus Was a Good Idea

We spent a lovely weekend in Tallinn, although we don’t have pictures to prove it because, along with our backpacks and travel guide, our cameras were on the desk in our dorm room — packed for our planned Saturday departure.

In Tallinn, we walked along the waterfront, checked out the local grocery stores, and admired the ancient architecture. We also bought toothbrushes, two changes of underwear, and winter hats.

Elizabeth and I often look back on that weekend. “What were we thinking?” we’ll say with a bemused smile. But neither of us regrets the trip. In fact, it’s one of the trips we think of most fondly.

How to Act Like a 20-Year-Old in Estonia

I’m not one to toss about hackneyed expressions like “seize the day” and “there’s no time like the present.”

But I will say there’s a lesson we can learn from my 20-year-old self. Granted, it was much easier then to hop on a bus and leave the country. I didn’t have a house, a dog, or a job to hold me back.

Even so, there’s something to be said for stepping back from the daily grind to take advantage of life right now — for changing your perspective.

That might mean hopping on a train for an impromptu trip. It might just mean taking a day off of work to spend with your family. Or it might mean adding a week to your vacation so you can experience more of a new country.

After all, when you look back on your life, are you more likely to remember what you did during those 7 days in the office, or what you saw during that week as you delved deeper into the culture of a new country?