Cardinal Emprise

When I travel, I witness much joy, but also people who are absolutely miserable.  I have seen sullen groups of friends, couples at each other’s throats, families yelling at each other, and people that just look like they are having the worst day of their lives.   Travel can be exciting and so much fun, but it can also be stressful and exhausting and bring out our worst selves.  

Not all travel misery can be avoided.  There are delays, cramped seats on planes, bad weather, and difficult people.  However, there are some ways to set yourself up for success.   I like to say that there are no bad trips, there are just great trips, and there are trips with great stories.   Here are some tips to avoid trips with great stories.

Plan, Plan, Plan

While we may love the idea of being a free-spirit, taking off on an adventure and seeing where the day takes us, that can turn very stressful if you end up lost, with nowhere to stay, or things end up being more expensive than expected.   I am not suggesting a detailed minute by minute itinerary, but knowing where you are going to sleep, the basic lay of the land, and how much things cost can go a long way to preventing problems and corresponding stress.

I find researching destinations almost as much fun as visiting them.   I love looking at maps, perusing travel sites, reading reviews, figuring out how to get around, investigating what there is to do and where I am going to stay.  I have halfway planned more trips than I could ever take.   Not everyone loves planning, but the planning allows me to relax into the trip and not have to be figuring out everything on the fly, and it limits problematic surprises.

Pack Well

I have packed heavy, and I have packed light.   Packing heavy is easy to do on the front end, but schlepping around a lot of baggage is hard work.   Packing light is harder on the front end, because it requires hard decisions and planning, but it gives you more agility during the trip.  Carrying on means you do not lose your luggage and gives you the flexibility to hop on a different flight.    

The keys to packing light are a simplified beauty routine, limiting shoe choices, a mix and match wardrobe and a little laundry soap for sink laundry.   Hair products, too many shoes, and clothes worn only once (or not at all) are your enemies.  You may think you could never pack light, but I recommend you try it just once and enjoy the freedom.

All that being said, if there are things that are crucial to your comfort, they should come with you.   That special pillow.  The nice robe.  Your favorite sweatshirt.  A small first aid kit.  While I recommend travelling light, being relaxed and comfortable is the most important thing.

Avoid the Crowds

Traveling during peak times can add an extra layer of stress.  Long lines, beach traffic, crowded attractions, over-booked flights, all can eat away at the joy of seeing new places.  Also, peak times are more expensive which can both limiting and lead to stress that lingers long after the return flight lands.

Sometimes peak times are hard to avoid because holiday times are what they are—the break we all get from work and school, and the easiest window of travel opportunity.  Some of us enjoy or perhaps tolerate crowds more than others, but even the most gregarious of us can get worn down by a vacation that feels like an endless cattle call.  If you can avoid holidays and the middle of summer, why wouldn’t you?   September (after Labor Day) is a great time to go to the beach.  

If you are traveling during peak times, look for quieter destinations.   While I will always recommend the earliest flight of the day as the best way to make sure you get there today, that early morning airport rush with long lines can be a harrowing start to a vacation.   I have found nearly non-existent TSA lines later in the morning, once all the first flights get away.  A 9:00 or 10:00 am flight can avoid the 4:00 am wakeup call and seemingly interminable lines, giving you a stress-free lead into a great vacation.

Cushion the Budget

Money stress can be a travel buzz-killer.   While you may be a great travel planner and budgeter, there are always surprises.  Just like you should have an emergency fund for car repairs, you need to have funds for travel surprises. 

Also, as much as I love to say, “Go, go, go, go!  Go now!”, be careful of committing to trips you can not really afford right now.  Unfortunately, we sometimes have to wait (and save) for those big adventures.

Finally, travel insurance can bring a lot of peace of mind, particularly when you are booking those big trips.  It won’t cover overspending on dinner, but if your trip gets interrupted or you lose your luggage, it can help cover those unexpected expenses.   If you travel a lot, you might consider purchasing a annual travel insurance policy.

Click here to request a travel insurance quote

Sleep and Eat Well

I always say that if I am ever arrested for a violent crime, please check my blood sugar and the sleep app on my phone because I was likely in a sleep deficit and hungry when my normally patient and forgiving nature broke on someone’s head.   Getting good sleep and regular nutrition on a daily basis are important, but even more so when you are navigating unfamiliar places.

The most common enemy of sleep is noise.  A loud city.  A clunky air conditioner that rattles every time it kicks on (ugh…the worst).  In hotel rooms, the AC/heat unit will usually have a setting where the fan runs constantly.   That can help mask a lot of noise.  However, I know people that bring a small white noise machine or use an app on their phone.   I would recommend using these at home, so that they sound like home when you are on the road.  If that does not work, I always have a pair of earplugs in my bag.   

Eating well is important, too.   One of the fun part of travel is enjoying different restaurants and locale cuisine.  But, sometimes, food is not readily available.   Or, the available food is low in nutritional value.

I always have a granola bar or trail mix for emergencies in my travel bag to hold off the violence inducing hunger.  The other thing that can backfire on you is using vacation as an excuse to eat all the things you would never let yourself eat at home.   I have been like a kid in a gas station with a hundred-dollar bill, loading up on road trip snacks.  And, I have over-indulged in one heavy meal after another, leaving my sluggish and bloated.  You can still indulge but alternate those indulgences with healthier choices.

Practice Patience and a Find Your Go with the Flow

Things go wrong when we are sitting in our home on a normal day just going about the chores, so of course, things will also go wrong when we are traveling.  Not every day.  Not even every trip.  But, there will be flat tires, late flights, missed connections, lost luggage, forgotten items, head colds, flu bugs, storms, sunburns, rude people, fatigue, getting lost, crowds, and blisters.  Having patience and a good attitude goes a long way to not letting these things ruin your trip.

Remember, these things that go wrong will make for the story every tells when they get home.   In that story, will you be the one screaming at someone, or the one quietly figuring out how to make lemons out of lemonade?  Because I promise you that some (not all) of these stories will be pure lemonade in the end. 

Those stories will be things like, if our excursion had not been rained out, we would have never holed up in that fun restaurant with the live band and great fish tacos. If we had not missed our connection, we would have never met that cool couple from Miami.   If we had not lost our luggage, I would never have gone shopping for underwear and found my favorite hat.  The adventures we do not plan are often the best.

It is helpful to put things in perspective and resist the urge to make things worse than they are.   On one cruise, we were late getting into port, and it was a half day in port anyway, so everyone was anxious to get off the ship.   People were crowded on the deck, and crew was trying to organize them into a long line that snaked through every available space.  When the line finally moved, some people that were not really in line, but kind of “line adjacent” tried to merge in.  A lady in front of me started yelling at them to go to the back of the line, and something to the effect that even Kindergarteners know how lines work.  So, it was a bit of a stressful disembarkation.

Yet, we all got off, and our excursions were waiting on us.  As I’m walking down the pier, I hear a woman behind me say, “I knew that was going to be a catastrophe”.  But, her friend put it in perspective, “That was NOT an actual catastrophe.  People die in catastrophes.  It was more of an annoyance.”    Don’t make catastrophes out of annoyances.   Take some cleansing breaths, put them behind you, and do what you came to do—explore and enjoy!

Remember, You Can Almost Always Abort

Sometimes, there is a situation that just cannot be salvaged, and it is time to abort and go home.  You can almost always abort.  “Almost” because if you are in the air or at sea, you are at least going to have to make it back to land, and sometimes it is not feasible.  It might be too expensive to change your flight, or you cannot find a one-way car rental, or you are with people that do not want to abort, and they are people you cannot abandon.

One of the perks of solo travel is that yours is the only hand on the big red abort button.   As much as I love adventures, I have pushed this button.  I have not done it very often to abort a trip as a whole, but often in the middle of something that I thought would be fun but was not actually fun.   Or, sometimes, I was just too tired to enjoy something.  It didn’t matter that I had paid for the tickets, and it seemed like a waste to leave early.  It is not a waste of money, if you figured out that the activity was something you do not enjoy.  It is only a waste, if you waste your time being miserable. 

No one likes to feel trapped in a situation.  Even if you don’t push the big red abort button, sometimes knowing that you can, gives you what you need to power through and find the lemonade.  Saying things like “I’m going to give this one more day, one more hour or fifteen more minutes, then I’m out” can get you through. 

Do you have any trips that are “great stories”?  How did you overcome and get things back on track.