We don’t want to do what we’re supposedly supposed to do: to finish school to go to more school to go to work to take four weeks holiday to have kids to retire with a heck-tonne of regrets, regrets about the things that we didn’t do. In the year 2015, and even more in the year 2016, the things that we’re supposed to do are becoming less relevant and more antiquated. Don’t do them.
So let me introduce Geoff
Some people think that his name is best spelt with a J, as in Jeff, but they are wrong. This is Geoff and it’s with a G. His last name is unimportant to us at the moment. Geoff is from regional Australia, let’s say coastal, and after finishing school and banging about with his mates he realised that he had to get out of town and country because he wasn’t doing anything titillating, or even bra-illating, if I may slip a dad joke in.
So Geoff booked a summer in Europe, because that’s what everybody with the brains and means does, and booked into an organised tour with ‘Bustiki’. But before it kicked off he came to Pamplona and stayed with us at Stoke Travel for three days, but no more because on the fourth day his tour began.
When Geoff arrived he was checked-in and given a beer at the same time. He started chatting to some babes and drinking with some legends. Over the course of the next three days he did so much fun stuff, stuff that he’d never before imagined himself doing. He literally had the time of his life, so much so that his stoke shone through his hangovers, and he wondered if he’d ever be this happy again.
When he mentioned his unbreakable happiness to his new friends – the babes and legends – they said, yeah, you’ll be happy again, you’ll be happy with us at BBK, or La Tomatina, or any of the various other festivals that we plan on maybe doing this year, because we have these Stoke Passports, and we can kind of do things on a whim, when we want, because we don’t want to live a life of regrets.
And Geoff said, “But I’ve booked a trip with Bustiki.” And his friends said, “Oh”, and Jennifer put her hand on his shoulder and said, “It’ll be alright, Greg, we’ll keep in touch.” Geoff didn’t know if she’d always not really known what his name was, but he knew that she definitely didn’t now, and that was all that mattered to him.
The next morning Geoff ticked off 30 countries in six days, or something, and took 800 photos of churches and returned home and took a job as a welder. It is a great job, and his photos are great, but he could never get Jennifer and his other chums and love interests out of his mind. He had one shot and he ended up covered in disappointment, not spaghetti, all because he wanted to be locked in. Don’t be Geoff.
So claim your freedom
If we’re travelling to avoid the inerasable horror of retrospective FOMO then why do we tie ourselves to inflexible itineraries? Why do we allow ourselves to be fooled by the snake-oil sellers of the travel industry? “Hop on, hop off” trips inevitably end up being “hop on, stay on” trips, the freedom of travel being a marketing ploy. At Stoke, we don’t want you to be glued to an itinerary; we want the road to dictate your schedule, because we essentially are you and thus just know what you want.
You want freedom! You don’t want to regret the trip that you undertook so you wouldn’t regret not taking the trip. You want freedom! The ability to extend your time at a destination or event as you see fit, to let go, to live in the moment, to let your surroundings dictate your movements because, let’s be frank, unless you’re a committed vagabond, your travelling years are really the only time you can truly do whatever you want, whenever you want to do it, and live with only a loose attachment to a schedule. It sounds fruity, but it is what it is, and it’s bloody glorious and fruity.
Grab your passport
It was our desire to pander to this cardinal desire to travel without regrets that led us to creating the Stoke Travel Passport – our way of simplifying, yet freeing up, your travelling schedules. With the Stoke Travel Passport you can do as few or as many events as you want, with 16 to choose from all over Europe and the whole year through. You can sign up for whichever events the road chooses for you or extend your trips or whatever, but for the details you can just check it out here, because I’d rather spend my time with you telling the story of Geoff who didn’t get the passport this summer and ended up metaphorically dying of regret.
The Stoke Travel Passport is always available and is one of the better ways to ensure that your life is lived with as few regrets as is possible. Nobody else wants to give you this kind of freedom, but we do because we love you and your endless opportunities that litter your future.
*Geoff may or may not be, but totally is, a complete fabrication conjured by yours truly in the interest of making the point that the only path to pure happiness is by travelling, and the best way to travel is simply and freely and thus, ipso facto, it’s with a Stoke Passport burning a hole in your rucksack.
By ‘Gravy’, a member of the Stoke Travel crew