Why I’ll Always Be the Baby on the Trip

🧳 Why I’ll Always Be the Baby on the Trip

If you knew a little about me, like in the kinda way ChatGPT knows me from daily therapy sessions, you’d probably think I’m an absolute drill sergeant when it comes to travel. Full on laminated itineraries, three reservations for dinner booked each night (because what if your back up plan needs a back up), chapstick in every bag packed right next to the PB&J sandwiches I made for each travel companion.

If that’s your guess, I’d say wow, fair play. That does sound just like me.

However, that’s surprisingly far from the truth, and not just because PB&J sandwiches are far from helping us reach our protein goals.

When it comes to travel, I’ve always been the baby. Not the planner, not the strategist. Just the guy who shows up when told, boarding pass in hand, ready to be shepherded along. As a kid, my parents handled it. Later, girlfriends did. Now Erica does. I’ve never held the reins.

And here’s the odd part: I like it that way.

Because travel, more than any other part of my life, is where I’ve surrendered control. I don’t audit, I don’t micromanage. I just move through it. And that surrender, the rare absence of control, might actually be the most valuable souvenir I’ve carried back home.

There’s admittedly a sweet spot to this. Surely you can’t completely raw dog your way through travel. You know those smutty rom com books where the angsty protagonist buys a one way ticket to some vague European country with nothing but a tote bag in hand? That’s not a prescription for the Gravy Gentleman.

I do like a dash of intentionality with how and where I spend my time. But the teachable lesson in my accidental travel findings is how liberating improvisation can be.

You, yes you. I know you’re already thinking of all the ways a lack of planning could royally f#@$ up your life. Which is why I’ve assembled an acronym to commit to your memory banks whenever you feel the urge to overcomplicate plans:

T.R.I.P.
Target with intention
Release control
Improvise along the way
Pivot when needed

That’s the formula… Because I’m still looking for the valuable life-lesson from this one. I’m lucky I stumbled into being okay with limited control in travel. But it is not my style to drag that same irreverence into the rest of my life. In day-to-day living, surrender without direction just looks like laziness.

There still needs to be an aim, a direction worth moving toward. In travel, it’s as simple as booking a ticket to somewhere allegedly sweet. Once that’s set, most of the heavy lifting is already done.

Life feels the same. You pick a direction, you commit, and then you trust the ride. You book the flight, you buckle in, and from that point on you’re the baby with the complimentary peanuts.

🍳 The Perfect Vacation

Vacations are like a diner menu. A lot of options, and if you’re like me you’re tempted to order something from every page. I’m not saying this is the only order, but it’s the right one.

As I write this, I’m 3.5 hours of sleep into my third day in Greece. My travel companions are asleep upstairs while I sip some of the weakest coffee I’ve ever tasted (weak is good, I can keep sipping it all morning). The continental breakfast hums with a cacophony of foreign languages and I find myself contemplating my ideal vacation day.

So here it is, laid out like the Michelin-rated diner menu it deserves to be.

Please seat yourself. Specials written in the language of leisure. No substitutions.

☀️ Early Riser Special
Wake up before the others, watch a sunrise that nobody else on the trip will remember, sip coffee so weak you can keep sipping all morning, and quietly remind yourself that you’re both not the main character… and definitely the main character.

🥖 The Cultural Appetizer
A stroll through back alleys on the way to breakfast, maybe a bakery stop, maybe an awkward chat with a local. Not a dish you’d order twice, but one that makes the menu worth reading.

🛋️ The Leisure Entrée
Four uninterrupted hours in a lounge chair. Served with a side of whatever passes for diet soda in this region. Best enjoyed warm, fizzy, and without plans.

🍸 The Dinner Decision
After a respectable period of procrastination, cocktails are poured. Dinner is chosen. Walking distance preferred, good vibes required. Flavor optional.

🛏️ The Responsible Dessert
Bed at a reasonable hour, garnished with the faint satisfaction that you squeezed everything out of the day and nothing squeezed you.

📚 Things Worth Your Time

📚 How to Be Perfect — Michael Schur
While on my way to earning one of the most pointless degrees in existence (film), I took a philosophy class and almost made the call to minor in another. I’ve always loved learning about the old wise men and women of our past and the ideas that kept them up at night. Why can’t we monetize thinking deeply? (Actually, I guess that’s what I’m kinda doing here.)

This book is like a cheat code. It synthesizes a lot of the great wisdom from ancient philosophy into something you don’t need a translator for. No Ancient Greek required. It’s accessible, witty, and packed with insights on how to navigate life’s big moral dilemmas.

Warning: it will also 10/10 turn you into the guy who won’t shut up about Kant at a dinner party.

👜 The Bag I Keep Cheating With 
In the long list of things I’d like to do professionally if I had infinite lives, go ahead and put “bag consultant” near the top. I’ve got opinions. Strong ones. And so far, I’ve yet to find a bag that meets every requirement.

On this trip I brought the 303 Duffle from Grams 28. The style is clean, the vibe is right, Discount code: CINEMAGRAVY20  - but it’s not perfect. Honestly, the closest I’ve come to perfection is still the cheap $30 Amazon travel/gym bag I’ve been cheating on. It’s not flashy, but it’s got just enough pockets to make you wonder if you even own enough things to put in them. Usually the reverse problem, right?

Sometimes the right bag is not the fanciest, it’s the one that makes your travel feel frictionless.

🌅 Sunrises
Hot take: sunsets are overrated. Yes, they’re beautiful, but the symbolism feels played out. A sunrise, though, that’s different. A morning sunrise locks me in effortlessly to the infinite wisdom of the universe.

It feels like the mom who whips up pancakes before the kids are even awake. Quietly setting the stage, filling the house with the smell of buttermilk and bacon. Proof that nature doesn’t need an audience to show off.

Sunsets beg to be noticed. Sunrises just happen, whether you’re watching or not.

🔜 Coming Soon…

Out Now CINEMAGRAVY (YouTube)
Why the Gym is the Easiest Part of My Day
Started as a mini-manifesto on lessons the iron paradise has taught me about life, and evolved into a Trojan Horse experiment in how I package my YouTube videos. Expect it front-loaded with bro-isms, ending with the real gems—insights I’ve picked up over the years on discipline, passion, and becoming an Olympian-level life liver.

8/31 — SUNDAY GRAVY SCHOOL – (IG)
Adonis Ratio
Why do I train shoulders like I’m secretly on payroll for Big French Doors? Why do I pack protein bars like Athens hasn’t heard of macros?

Because somewhere along the way, someone measured a god and left us mortals chasing fractions. This reel is my attempt to break it down, a hopeful pill for the kings out there who want to inch closer to that slightly more godlike physique. All in the name of beauty.

✌ Until Next Time…

Challenging myself this week to betray a few of my usual social media cadences, mostly in the hopes of detaching my self worth from how tightly I grip my own self inflicted deadlines.

Peace out from Chalkida. Next stop, the island of Paros.

Love y’all. And since I’m out here practicing the art of letting go, I’d love to know how you detach. Favorite methods to chill? DMs are always open.