July 9, 2022 - News Post

I live about 15 minutes away on foot from a moderately famous hike.

It's in all the guidebooks, it's been in a couple movies, and I've passed by the trailhead many times when walking dogs.

Still, I’ve never taken the hike

Sure, the trail has been closed for months due to Covid, and then landslides. But it's open now and has been for the majority of the time I've lived here.

It's not that I don't enjoy hiking. It's one of my favorite activities. The weather, while rainy, has remained temperate. Not cool, not overly hot

So why don't I go?

Tourists.

I see them driving through my neighborhood. I see them walking through my neighborhood. I'll see them on bikes, mopeds, and some sort of three-wheeled motor vehicles with flags sticking out of the back.

When I lived in Orlando, the local economy rotated around tourism. Here in Hawaii, it's pretty similar. When you live in a place like that, you tend to avoid the touristy areas.

I don't hate tourists, but I don't love feeling like one. When I go on vacation, I always do what the locals do. I like to go to weird spots that are off the beaten path. Sometimes this is dangerous, sometimes I meet weird people, and sometimes I discover something delightful.

I like to explore. Nothing makes me feel like less of an explorer than jamming shoulder to shoulder with 20 other people taking pictures of something I've seen in a brochure.

I tell myself that I'll visit these sites one day… when people come to visit me. Then, when visitors arrive, they inevitably hit those sites without me because I have to work that day.

I could go anytime. I could go right now. I think that’s what keeps me from going.

Knowing that one day I’ll do that hike, means I don’t have to.

Not today.

-Jeff