When it came to travel, my father had two lines he used throughout his life as a dad and granddad. First, if somebody asked him directions he would ALWAYS say: “You can’t get there from here.” Pretty accurate observation in 1960s West Virginia.

If we were driving somewhere and griping and complaining about the long, hot journey (no AC… wastes fuel), he would tell us: “It’s just over this next hill.” Also, apropos for West Virginia travel, I think.

But we traveled best we could with dogs, cats, friends, family and Grandma lying down in the back of the station wagon all the way to wherever.

Optometrists travel. We pay for CE in wonderful locations so we can—we think—write the trip off. For some reason, it gives us solace to think we only had to spend ten grand to save one. And don’t forget that us solo practitioners also had to close the office while we were out of town for our new fancy pupillometer wet lab. It’s only money.

Then, as the career proceeds, at least for lots of us—including me—we decide we’ll drive an hour on Friday afternoon and knock down our CE requirements, hobnob with our colleagues around the coffee pot (or keg) and hightail it back home to reopen on Monday like nothing ever happened. 

Travel becomes more for fun. The good kind of travel begins.  

Unless you have kids.

When you head to the beach with kids, you are most definitely NOT on vacation. Vacation is when the kids are in school and you can eat lunch without having to break up fights, order more pizza, grill another hot dog and find something for some little mouth to drink because you just found out they hate milk or, even worse, have decided they are vegan this morning.

My wife and I are finally traveling. Only took 70 years of my life for me to have the opportunity to go on vacation where SHE wants to go. Maybe when I’m 80 she will let me decide. She chooses Europe.

Been to Italy. Been to Greece. Been to Spain. Been to Portugal. Been to Turkey. Been to France.  Oh, and for a trip we both could agree on… been to Graceland to see Elvis’ stuff.

I have, as do many people, travel anxiety. There are two causes of my travel anxiety.

One is that I am secretly a control freak. Optometrists are mostly control freaks. We want to make sure that there are no real surprises. We want our patients to understand and agree with our best counsel. We want our staff to measure seg heights as if their very lives depended on the result, and it does, by the way. 

If nothing else, the fact that we are bred and trained to be control freaks should be evidence enough that we are “real doctors.” I guess legislators are scared we will control them so, instead, they control us, even if they think guacamole is an eye disease. To me, good guacamole control is often more tricky than good glaucoma control.

For me, the second cause of travel anxiety is television. Why do all the news stories in the two months before I have to fly somewhere include congressional hearings about how some wing fell off some airplane in the Himalayas so everybody who survived ate each other? Can’t we have stories about how 431,000 airplanes took people all over the world and the biggest problem was that guy who tried to vape in the bathroom?

Go ahead and travel. If I can do it (although my wife has to drag me on the plane strapped up like Hannibal Lecter), you can. Travel for CE. It helps you make lists of the stuff your office can do without. Travel for fun. Get the heck out of Dodge every chance you get. 

I know a doctor who never wanted his patients to know he went on vacation so he slathered his face and neck with sunscreen and wore gloves the whole time. The patients would never see his tans so I guess he could convince them he was at CE, not deep sea fishing.

Me? I want them to know I was brave enough to get away.

Dr. Vickers received his optometry degree from the Pennsylvania College of Optometry in 1979 and was clinical director at Vision Associates in St. Albans, WV, for 36 years. He is now in private practice in Dallas, where he continues to practice full-scope optometry. He has no financial interests to disclose.