Adventure is a State of Mind

Be a Brave and Wise Traveler…and Adventure-ish!

When it comes to travel, so many people have a dream of traveling independently and customizing a trip that is perfect for them, without knowing how to turn that dream into a reality. One of the saddest phrases anyone can utter is “I wish I could but…”

There are package tours, of course, but they obviously limit the traveler to a set itinerary. Many individuals would like to travel independently, but they often don’t know how to start planning, and when they start looking at the internet, they can become even more overwhelmed by the “adventure travel” websites that involve significant physical and emotional daring. In the broad range of choices between having every detail of a trip planned out by someone else and the experience of hitchhiking and sleeping in hostels with strangers are found trips more attractive to those of us who want adventure….but not too much of it.

The Psychology of Travel Planning

Independent travel provides flexibility and fun, and it is easier to do than many people realize. Once you have the tools, it’s not that different to plan a trip abroad than it is to plan a trip to a place closer to home. Without the right tools, it can seem impossible. The good news is that the most important tool you need is right between your two ears–making some tweaks in how you think about planning independent travel (and creating adventures) will make the entire process easier.

Please understand, I’m not kicking tour packages. There is definitely a time and a place for them. When I want to go someplace where I don’t have transportation, I’ve been known to sign up for a day tour. And some people really do want someone else to do the planning and organizing for them…and to maybe carry their luggage. But unfortunately, there are many people who would like to travel independently and to set their own unique itinerary…but they have no idea how to do so. Before we discuss the how’s, though, let’s talk about the why’s.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did.

Mark Twain

Why Travel Independently?

My number one reason for traveling independently? The freedom to do what I want to do, when I want to do it! (Within legal and moral limits, of course!) I like being able to customize a trip to focus on the things that I and my travel companions enjoy the most. For me, that’s mostly food. I love, love, LOVE trying new foods, and travel is one of the absolute best ways to do that. I also love learning new things about cultures, experiencing art and architecture, and being in beautiful places in nature. Throw in a tiny bit of shopping and a lot of time for people watching, and you’ve just created my ideal trip!

But my ideal trip may not be your ideal trip. I have friends who love to visit casinos. I have other friends who would prefer to stay up late drinking and making new friends in a pub or bar. There may be some of you who want to challenge yourselves physically by hiking, rock climbing, biking, or dancing until dawn. There are as many different ways to enjoy different places as there are people who want to travel there. When you plan your own trip, you can prioritize the experiences that are important to you.

Affordability

Independent travel is also usually more affordable. If you use a travel agent or sign up for a tour through an agency and meet your tour guide at the bus with its driver, it’s only fair that all of those people helping to provide your fun experience are paid a fair wage. If you do the planning and “guiding” yourself, however, you’ve obviously decreased the cost of the trip. You also have the flexibility to cut back on expenses by not doing things that aren’t important to you, which allows you more money for the things you choose to prioritize. If you don’t want to visit a museum for three hours as planned in a tour package, and you’re traveling independently, you don’t need to pay for a ticket and can sit in a plaza with a nice glass of wine and people watch…if that’s what you prefer to do, of course.

Sustainability

A more recent awareness (for me at least) is that independent travel is also a more sustainable way of seeing the world. If you are traveling by yourself, with a friend or a partner, or even with your family or a small group of friends or relatives, you are not going to disrupt the locals going about their daily lives in the same way that a tour bus or cruise ship will when they disembark. You also have the freedom to visit neighborhoods or small villages that are off of the very well-beaten tourist path, which reduces the pressure on more well-known locations. Spending time off the beaten path sometimes also brings needed income to lesser known areas.

Fun!

Finally, independent, adventure-ish travel is fun! If you do it well, there will be lots of room in your travel days for the unexpected to happen. Some of my favorite travel memories involve things that I didn’t plan for but were possible because I wasn’t stuck in a crowd with a large tour group or limited to a strict itinerary.

Some of the travel stories that I love to tell and retell the most are of being lost and taking a taxi for a one-block ride to the bed and breakfast where my friend and I were staying, learning about the rules of Pétanque through a combination of broken English and broken French in a sun-dappled town square in rural France, getting to witness the aurora borealis because my husband and I and my cousins were staying in a house far from the lights of town, accidentally coming across a neighborhood parade where everyone marching wore Renaissance costumes, and buying and eating the best sandwich of my life off of the back of a truck in the middle of nowhere.

Where will your adventures and a dose of serendipity take you?