By Nancy Dorrans
Here we are, stepping into a new year with the return of brighter days, celebrations, and resolutions. During a solstice service at First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church, the few of us present wrote down our intentions on small pieces of red tissue paper and then one by one, we carried our intentions to the pulpit, lit them, and sent them up into the universe. My intentions were sincere: be positive, grateful, nice, active, and creative.
Intentions for 2022
My intentions have been guiding me for some time and especially during this pandemic. These intentions are not resolutions but broader ideas. Yet sometimes I need reassurance or a change to guide me and improve my intentions and to help those around me.
I get nostalgic during the holidays. They are very different since my mother died. She loved Christmas and was all about baking, decorating, gifts, and parties. I savor the memories of those Christmases, but my family can’t recreate them no matter how we try. So, this year we are making conscious changes.
Dorrans family at Christmas, (left-right) Susan, Nancy, John, Joanie, and Betsy. Circa 1970, Northampton Twp., OH… 
And in 2012. -All photos courtesy of Nancy Dorrans
Broadway Comes to Knoxville
I travelled to Tennessee to be with my family over the holidays. However, instead of a lot of shopping, my older sister and I went to see the traveling Broadway production of “Come from Away” at the Tennessee Theater in Knoxville. It is the “remarkable true story” of the day the world stopped on September 11th, 2001, and thirty-eight planes and close to 7,000 people landed in Gander, Newfoundland. What an amazing musical that knitted together the tragedy with kindness, gratitude, love, generosity, and creativity. It made me feel good about the good in these people and humankind!
Why Not a Christmas Cruise
The next change was that the day after Christmas, my father, my younger sister and her family, and I sailed away on a four-night celebrity cruise. It was my father’s idea. He’s always had motion sickness, however he decided he wanted to try going on a cruise to get over it and take a chance.
I asked him where he wanted to go, and he said, “On a cruise.”
We are all vaccinated, boosted, masked, and tested negative per orders of the cruise line. I’m grateful that we can do this and possibly start a new tradition.
Out of Our Comfort Zones
As a travel counselor, I’ve strived to navigate my clients on authentic experiences, safely out of their comfort zone and into an appreciation of other cultures, landscapes, traditions, food, music, and people! It’s not about the cultural differences on this journey. On this cruise my father is getting out of his comfort zone and taking me with him.
Nancy Dorrans and her family on cruise this December! 
My father is on to something. The travel industry is shifting to an experience-based economy, and we are joining in. This is a shift away from retail sales. We are on the verge of “The Hero’s Journey Economy.”
Consumers now want to live a life with more significant accomplishments and meaning. People are longing for purpose, and a quest for personal transformation. They want their journey to have meaning, and they want to return home changed, improved, and enhanced for the better. The challenge for the travel industry is that a genuinely transformational experience is not always pleasurable. Some of the best transformational experiences not only take people out of their comfort zones, but also push people to their limits.
The Better Marketing Pub
My family and I are on a quest for personal transformation, a hero’s journey to face the fear of motion sickness and to change the way we celebrate without my mother. These changes in my family’s celebrations, however small, will hopefully be significant and positive.
You may think that celebrating Christmas by going on a cruise isn’t that significant. It may not push you to your limits and it may seem like a small accomplishment, but it is significant to my father and to me too!
Nancy Dorrans has been a MOAC member for over 20 years. She is a past president of the club (multiple times) and is always ready to step forward when something needs to be done. She is a professional travel expert and founded Adventure Marketplace in 2014.
