By Kyle Plotkin
Investment Advisor Representative
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There’s an old saying I’ve always liked: Americans think 100 years is a long time, and Europeans think 100 miles is a long way. I experienced it firsthand on a recent trip with my wife. Andrea and I spent a wonderful ten days touring parts of Scotland, Ireland, and England. Experiencing time and space over there is much different than being here in the States—even in an “old” historical city like Philadelphia. We began our trip with three nights in Scotland’s capital, Edinburgh, and were blown away by the city’s architecture and history, as well as the friendly vibe of its people.
The city itself is divided into two main sections: Old Town and New Town. I was struck by the fact that the “New Town” was built during the Georgian era in the late 18th century—around the same time the U.S. was being founded. Old Town is anchored by Edinburgh Castle, a genuine medieval stronghold dating to the 11th century that has survived more than two dozen military sieges across the centuries. The streets have been inhabited for a thousand years straight and are still lively and full of shops, pubs, hotels, and museums.
That living history feeling carried into subsequent legs of our trip. Simply walking old cobblestone streets surrounded by monuments and buildings from earlier historical eras really reframes your perspective. Watching the sunset within the circles at Stonehenge was a powerful experience, one that felt like it connected us back to prehistoric times. Being able to go into the passage tomb at Newgrange in Ireland, a Neolithic monument that predates the Egyptian pyramids, was another moving experience. Even one of the “newer” places we visited, the Long Room Library at Trinity College in Dublin, still dates back roughly three centuries. The Roman Baths in Bath, England, were another remarkable example. The city still serves as a refreshing getaway locale just like it did inside those same walls two thousand years ago. The historical continuity hit me deeply, and that was one of my favorite parts of the entire trip.
We spent a lot of time and energy planning this trip—from mapping out city routes and selecting hotels to making sure we hit our bucket-list destinations (which we did). It was quite the project. But as I’ve learned from my experience as a financial planner, proper planning is the key to good outcomes. We spaced out our major experiences so that each day we had one main anchor point. That allowed us the freedom and flexibility to improvise and simply wander these cities to discover the texture of each one, without worrying that we’d miss a major attraction or be rushed to get to the next place. It felt a lot like building a retirement plan. We don’t know what will happen in the future, but planning properly allows for the flexibility to let life unfold while knowing we’ll still be okay, even when we encounter unexpected bumps in the road.
The trip wasn’t all heavy, history-filled sightseeing. We also enjoyed some lighter moments along the way—having Beef Wellington at a Gordon Ramsay restaurant, spending a day exploring Longleat Safari Park and one of the largest hedge mazes in the world, touring the Guinness brewery and storehouse in Dublin, and simply wandering the streets of London, taking in the energy and atmosphere of the city. Being able to visit and become immersed in places we’d only seen in books and television really brings history and the human experience to life.
Looking back, what stayed with me most was not just the age of the places we visited, but the shift in perspective they created. Edinburgh’s “New Town” being centuries old is a good reminder that time can look very different depending on the lens we use. The same was true of the trip itself: the more thoughtfully the pieces were planned in advance, the freer we felt to simply live in the moment and take in the full range of what these locations had to offer. Proper planning allows life to unfold more naturally, and that’s a reminder I’ll carry with me both personally and professionally.