How we go on vacation as Christians

You might be happy that you don’t have me as your travel partner. But try to laugh and learn.

Bruce at the pregame festivities before the British Columbia Lions Canadian football team’s home game in Vancouver on July 25.

Nancy and I were on travel July 9–30. If you’d like to know what it’s like to travel for 22 days with a frugal, stubborn, somewhat inflexible man who insists that spiritual responsibilities don’t end when we go on vacation, then this post may be helpful.

(And even if not, you might learn something from how we take vacations.)

This is our 40th summer of camping. In 1987, when we first took an extended trip to places where we had no friends to host us, I said that I wasn’t going to pay for two weeks in motels and that we would have to learn how to live in a tent. Nancy embraced the challenge, as long as I gave her an air mattress, a thick sleeping bag, and as many blankets as she wanted.

Since then, we’ve spent almost two years’ worth of nights—up to 29 evenings in a single year—at campgrounds across the United States and western Canada. This year, we pitched our tent at three U.S. national parks, two other U.S. public campgrounds, and four locations within the Canadian province of British Columbia. Only in Victoria, BC did we reserve a small hotel room for two nights.

Our marriage combines two incompatible planning styles. When I’m in charge—especially if I’ve planned surprises for Nancy—we have an exhaustively prepared itinerary, though not too tightly scheduled because traffic and weather can cause unexpected delays. In contrast, although Nancy researches destinations well in advance, so that we can reserve accommodations and buy tickets for major activities, many of the details are figured out only after we show up.

Nancy is dwarfed by hanging baskets of flowers at the magnificent Butchart Gardens near Victoria, BC. This tourist stop was planned well in advance, but we adjusted the schedule due to heavy rains on the day when we originally intended to visit the gardens.

As a result, some days bring surprises for both of us. For example, Nancy didn’t realize that we would be passing through the small town of Squamish, BC until about half an hour before we arrived. She then sent a text message to one of our son’s best friends, who was spending the summer in Squamish. He met us at a coffee shop on short notice to talk about new developments in the crypto industry and the complications of having an Iranian wife who can’t enter the US.

Sometimes it’s best for even an inseparable couple to separate for a while, so that each partner can experience their own joys. For the first time ever, we did that on a vacation. On July 10, I hiked 18 miles in the mountains of Grand Teton National Park while Nancy went attended an orchestra rehearsal and wandered through art galleries in a nearby town. Since I am normally limited to hikes that Nancy can manage, I felt blessed to go where she could not go, climbing through alpine meadows full of wildflowers to a small lake.

While hiking alone, I am also more free to engage in my common pastime of conversing with strangers. At the lake, I met three energetic young women who serve as hiking guides for older people seeking expert support on difficult hikes. When I told them I was 65 years old, one of them replied, “Yes, but you’re not our target demographic, because you made it here by yourself.”

In Canada, many of our conversations started with apologies for my government’s recent behavior. At the border crossing, when a Canadian customs officer inquired about our purpose for entering, I said, “To take refuge from the Trump administration for 11 days.” I did not make any jokes when returning to the US.

Some of the money we save by camping goes instead to cultural events. Among our favorites is the Bard on the Beach summer theater festival in Vancouver, which modernizes Shakespeare plays by placing them in contemporary settings. This year, we saw The Merry Wives of Windsor presented as if the story took place not in an English town but at a community athletic center, thereby imbuing a classic comedy with new cultural commentary. The protagonist young couple became star soccer players, Falstaff chased women in their locker room, and one of the servants complained about having to deliver messages in person rather than by text.

Nancy at the stage where Bard on the Beach is performing The Merry Wives of Windsor this summer.

Whereas 30 years ago we could truly get away from work for two weeks, now everyone knows they can still reach you on your smartphone. Nancy waited until after we had left home to explain that although she could recharge her phone in the car, we didn’t have the proper converter for mine. That was an ingenious way to limit my phone usage! (Yes, we could have bought a converter along the way, but we chose not to.)

To ensure sufficient relaxation, Nancy took me to two small, delightfully quiet Canadian islands, Salt Spring and Galiano, for four quiet days of exploration so unique that I abandoned my plans to drop her off somewhere and climb the highest mountain on each island.

By North American standards, eating becomes a simple, no-frills activity on our camping trips. In remote areas, groceries are often far away or very expensive, and refrigeration is limited to whatever’s left of the last bag of ice we purchased, so we eat what’s available. We survived just fine while carefully planning to run out of perishable food before our cooler ran out of ice.

Along with remaining open to unanticipated divine appointments while traveling, we look for new church experiences. On this trip, we landed at a small nondenominational church in a predominantly Mormon town in Idaho, an Anglican congregation on Salt Spring Island, and a Christian Reformed church south of Vancouver that ministers to Asians, with worship services in Mandarin as well as English. The pastor at the English-speaking service there, Victor Chua, is married to Isabel Ong, my former colleague (now on maternity leave) at Christianity Today. After hearing Victor’s insightful exposition of Joshua 10, I told him, “If John Calvin were with us today, he would be very pleased.”

We love visiting friends on our travels, but no friend had agreed to go camping with us for 30 years. So Julia Duin—an excellent Christian journalist and editor of the Roys Report—gets special thanks for bringing her own tent to accompany us at North Cascades National Park. We were also greatly encouraged by visits with longtime friends Margaret and Dave Ellis near Seattle, and media professor and filmmaker Murray Stiller (son of World Evangelical Alliance global ambassador Brian Stiller) in White Rock, BC.

We experienced God’s main purposes for a vacation: to renew our marriage, marvel at God’s handiwork, inspire and be inspired by both friends and strangers, and find emotional and physical renewal—which was especially important for Nancy, who began another demanding year of school teaching on August 3.