Earlier this year, I decided that I was going to take a big vacation this summer — actually use my passport and Global Entry status and check something off the bucket list. I was thinking Norway would be good. It’s where one side of my family came from, and it looks like something I would enjoy, with forests, mountains, and water. I started researching it, and everything I saw spoke to my soul.

But I never actually booked anything. Now I’m at the point where I really need to be buying plane tickets and making hotel reservations, and I’m balking. I started worrying about traveling to a place where I don’t speak the language (I had all these grand plans about studying Norwegian on Duolingo, but never got started) and thought maybe I’d postpone the trip to next year and do something else this summer.

So I looked into Scotland, and flying there was really expensive. I thought maybe I could fly to London and take the train, but that was actually more expensive than flying to Oslo, even though the flight to Oslo is actually a flight to London, then changing planes to fly to Oslo. I also looked up Dublin, which is a bit more expensive than flying to Oslo.

The language thing shouldn’t be that big an issue, since most Norwegians speak perfect English, and Norwegian is a somewhat Germanic language, so I can figure out a lot of things like signs based on what I know of German. I looked up hotels, and it seems like I can get some pretty reasonably.

But every time I think of actually pulling the trigger and booking, I get a knot in my stomach. I don’t know if it’s a fear of the unknown (or of spending money) or just some sense that maybe this isn’t the right thing for me to do right now. The thought of spending that amount of time in transit isn’t very appealing (though I’m considering splurging on business class).

Or maybe I should do something closer to home — a mini-break in New York or Chicago, or something like that.

Whatever I do, I guess I need to decide and plan soon. Weirdly, I probably have more fun planning hypothetical vacations than I do actually taking the trip.

I do want to go to England in the fall because there’s a book I need to research, so maybe that can be my big trip.