Tropical hammocks

Hammock Happiness

 

Hammock Happiness
Hammock Happiness in the Galapagos Islands

 

I can’t think of any traveller I’ve met that doesn’t love hammocks. Aside from the trickery of getting into some of them gracefully, hammocks are pure relaxation!

Questions like ‘what are the most important travel inventions’ or ‘what essentials items do you need when travelling’ always seem to have people listing a long series of heavy, noisy, digitized, ‘disconnected’ items. Nobody can travel without their smartphone or tablet/laptop these days and cameras and wifi connections are must-haves it seems.

Hammocks at Lake Malawi
Beach hammocks overlooking Lake Malawi in Africa

 

I’m totally guilty of being a digital traveller too. If you ask me what is most important to me when travelling, then my camera gear comes up tops. But, I don’t think it should be that way, I think the questions we’re always asked are skewed…we need to pay more attention to what we enjoy most about travelling and why we travel…not what we travel with. I think if you eliminate the wants and focus on your surroundings – whether on a beach, on a boat, or in a forest, then simple things like staring up at the stars and swinging in a hammock creep into that ‘must-have’ list.

At least they do for me.

Inviting Hammocks
Off the coast of Brazil – Have you ever slept in a hammock on a boat? So relaxing…

 

Enjoying downtime on the road is something I only recently started to appreciate. I normally would pack in every minute of extra time with more activities, hikes, adventures and sight seeing. Now, I try to find a few days of relaxation time here and there. I’m letting the hammock lifestyle creep back into my travel plans and I’ve been less stressed on recent travels than I have before.

Tropical hammocks
Hanging out in a hammock in the Pantanal Wetlands.

 

So the question I send out to you is: What things are a must for you to be relaxed and happy when you travel?

6 thoughts on “Hammock Happiness”

  1. Great perspective, something I need to remember. On our last big trip, I remember laying in a hammock in Mindo, Ecuador watching the hummingbirds fly around the guest house feeders over the misty backdrop of the cloud forest. At the same time, I had the laptop on the hammock and I was trying to back up all of our cameras’ memory cards. I remember being quite stressed about how long it was all taking and why the computer wasn’t reading the one card. I certainly think I lost sight of the moment and where I was!
    Cassie recently posted..Meeting Phil in Punxsutawney, PA

  2. Long live the hammock Shaun! They do deserve recognition….! Haha, Cassie at least you were trying to deal with digital stress in a relaxed setting. Imagine if you weren’t in a hammock…you probably would have lost it! 😉

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