For some of us, the thought of planning a trip or travel vacation causes us to break out in a rash and start hyperventilating at the thought of all that could go wrong. For others, our cheeks flush with excitement and we immediately start inviting all our friends for the adventure of a lifetime.
Whether you’re a panic-prone, first-time traveler or a seasoned explorer, heading to Bora-Bora or driving to NYC, here are some handy tips on making the most of your vacation.
Practical Travel Tips
1. Research, research, research. You can never know too much about your destination.
· Do you need a visa?
· Can you eat fresh fruit and veggies there?
· What’s the currency and exchange rate?
· Do you need to get any vaccinations before you go?
Research different options for flights, hotels, hostels and free tourists sites (there’s something so satisfying about having fun and paying less!).
My current favourite is exitnow.ca – great deals on flights, hotels and packages to Europe, Mexico , and the Carribean.
Look into others' opinions. The internet exists for a reason, so use it! It may be time consuming to make a plan in advance, but it’ll help the trip be that much less stressful when you aren’t left scrambling because you didn’t know European hotels don’t give washcloths or squirming for days because of the fertilizers used on the raw veggies you ate in Brazil.
Lonelyplanet.com is a great resource for information, and most countries/cities have a tourism website.
Even Wikipedia gives a basic rundown for locations you might be visiting.
2. Get travel insurance. You never know what unexpected things will waylay you in your journeys.
In my last year of university, my roommate and I planned a reading week trip to London . After she booked our flights online, I was irritated to discover she’d spent an extra $100 or so on basic travel insurance.
Then, with less than a week before our trip, I came down with a sinus infection and she was flat on her back with some sort of infection too. I got medication and was hopeful that my sinuses would be clear enough so I could handle the pressure changes of a trans-Atlantic flight.
On Friday evening (we left on Monday), she headed home to sleep for the weekend and pray she was feeling well enough to travel. I walked out the door to the bus stop, slipped on the ice, fell and broke my arm. Suddenly, travel insurance was looking like a good thing.
We ended up going ahead with the trip as planned (we were both feeling significantly better, and she agreed to help me dress and do my hair), but knowing that we had the freedom to change our plans was definitely worth $100.
3. Travel with a buddy, but choose wisely. Traveling with a friend makes your adventures safer - you know there’s someone who knows you and your language and any special conditions you have.
It also makes the memories relivable. You have someone who’s shared these experiences, who was there when you got lost in the outskirts of Delhi, or when you saw Rupert Everett in London.
But if you don’t choose carefully and talk through your plans or expectations – it might cost you your friendship. There’s nothing more threatening to a friendship than walking out on each other in the middle of Poland, or refusing to pay half of the hotel in San Diego.
4. Be culturally sensitive. Even if you’re traveling within an English-speaking nation, there are still different cultural expectations, different taboos.
In Scotland, I learned (the hard way) that a little switch in whether your palm is facing in or out when you count to two means the difference between simply counting and rudely insulting those in front of you.
It’s just good etiquette to make sure you don’t unintentionally insult the people you meet.
It might mean changing your wardrobe for a couple of weeks, wearing longer skirts in Africa or covering your arms if you’re a woman in the Middle East. Whatever it is, even the little things make a big difference.
Catching the Travel Bug
I think the biggest thing that will make traveling fun is to realize that it won’t fulfill all our hopes and dreams. Many of us, myself included, have what I’d call a travel bug. There’s something about looking at other peoples’ pictures, reading about adventures and watching travel shows that makes my feet itchy! And ignites the process of reorganizing my budget, wondering if maybe I can find a good deal on a flight to Auckland over the weekend…
I love the excitement of being somewhere new, the beauty in unusual places and the diversity of culture that this big ol’ world contains. But I know that even if I visit every continent, I’ll be left wanting more.
I wonder if I’ll ever find “home” – that place where my heart says, “This is it.” With each new place I visit, I realize that it is just as flawed as the one before. Maybe the view of the ocean is better, but the garbage system is worse. Or social care is wonderful, but the climate is a bit too cold for my liking. There really is no paradise here on earth.
Traveling Soul Reflections
So what’s up with my heart? I think C.S. Lewis said it best:
"Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists…If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."
Maybe this hunger I have for travel, a place that I could call “home” and beauty in new places points to something deeper, a longing for something that’s literally out of this world – perhaps a longing for a place like heaven.
Another author, Mark Buchanan, put it this way in his book Things Unseen:
“God made us this way. He made us to yearn – to always be hungry for something we can’t get, to always be missing something we can’t find, to always be disappointed with what we receive, to always have an insatiable emptiness that no thing can fill and an untamable restlessness that no discovery can still. Yearning itself is healthy – a kind of compass inside us, pointing to True North.”
It makes sense. If there’s a God who loves us, who’s designed us not just for this world, but for an eternity with him, in the most complete paradise imaginable (or beyond imaginable), then it makes sense that our hearts would long for it, without knowing exactly what “it” is. We long for satisfaction and fulfillment in many different ways, yet never fully find it. Travel and adventure is just one of those.
The Perfect Travel Destination
My belief that there is a God that loves me and knows me personally has actually made traveling even more exciting. Now, the biggest thrills are made bigger by the anticipation of what heaven will be like. When I see the ocean rolling at my feet, standing on the edge of a Peruvian desert, the beauty of the moment isn’t just the clay and the waves and the sky, but the thought, If this is a part of our oh-so-flawed earth, I wonder what perfection is.
And when travel disappoints me, when I see the Mediterranean and think, That’s not as impressive as the pictures, it’s ok. Because as much as I want the Mediterranean to be amazing, I can be confident that someday I’ll see sights beyond the endless beaches and infinite oceans. I’ll walk with the perfect traveling companion, my closest Soulmate, taking in the sights and the company. Even though I know that this world will never produce perfection for me, I have great anticipation and hope for the place where life will be a perfect adventure.
I love to travel, because every trip is a foreshadowing of the most amazing adventure that’s yet to come.
Beth has traveled to Peru, France, Switzerland, and made three separate visits to the UK (this summer will be her fourth!). She has driven to countless locations across North America, and has visited every Canadian province except for PEI . The only place in the world she has no desire to tour is Antartica.
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