Adventure is a State of Mind
Recently my friend, Shelley, and I planned a travel adventure in just 15 minutes. Okay, maybe 15 minutes is a bit of an exaggeration, but stick with me and I’ll explain how you can develop the basic outline of your independent travel adventure in much less time than you think. And once you have that, the rest of your plans come together easy peasy!
How It Begins
A number of years ago, Greg and I took a trip to the Azores (an autonomous region of Portugal) with our friends, Shelley and Mike. A couple of years later, the four of us took a trip that included a few days in Barcelona, Spain. We fell in love with the culture and food of both countries. And since then, in part inspired by those two trips, we’ve discussed sharing another travel adventure to Portugal and Spain.
A few years ago, Mike and Shelley took a trip to Portugal. They enjoyed it so much that they assured us they were still interested in returning there with us.
Friends and family members took trips to both countries, and we absorbed details and recommendations. But time was limited, so we talked about the trip but didn’t do anything beyond talk. Then we retired, and time became more abundant!
And one day recently, Shelley was on the internet and saw a very affordable flight to Portugal…
The Discussion
Shelley called me about the cheap flight. She and I are prone to dreaming about possible trips, sometimes to the point of frustrating our husbands who aren’t always sure whether we’re dreaming or seriously planning.
Shelley stated that she and Mike would love to see more of southern Portugal since they had previously visited mostly the north. Since it’s all new to Greg and me, I agreed that would be fine with us. And we both agreed that if we were sticking to the south in Portugal, it made sense to also focus on the southern part of Spain.
From past discussions, we already knew that, if possible, we didn’t want to spend fewer than three nights in any location. (We love creating a home base and taking day trips rather than having to pack up our suitcase every morning to move to a new location.) Among the two couples, we had also mutually decided to minimize the need to rent a car during future trips. And because of the need to help care for aging parents back in Kansas, we decided to limit the trip to two and a half weeks.
With all these limits, it might seem like we were limiting our dreams, something all the self-help books and inspirational Instagram posts tell you not to do. The reality, however, is sometimes too many options can feel overwhelming. Although you don’t want to routinely talk yourself out of everything you want to do, having some limits actually pushes you to think creatively and allows you to make quicker decisions. In this case, the time limit and decision to stay at least three days in each location gave us guidelines as to how many cities we would stay in (four). Avoiding a rental car meant we only needed to consider towns or cities with good train or bus systems.
With these guidelines to help us, we looked at the map and quickly picked out Lisbon and Faro in Portugal and Seville and Málaga in Spain. We knew we wanted to visit Seville, but we picked Málaga by doing an internet search to identify major airports in southern Spain since we decided to fly into Portugal and home from Spain.
Putting Shape to the Plan
I wrote down “Day 1,” Day 2,” etc. down on a piece of paper and wrote out where we would be each day. (Make sure if you’re flying to Europe from North America that you assign the entire first day to travel since you won’t arrive until the next day.)
We then opened up Google Flights on the computer, and starting with the dates of the flights Shelley initially found, we began playing around with how to get the best price, depending on the days we left and returned and the length of the trip, varying between 16 and 17 days.
When we found what appeared to be the best dates to get the best price, we double-checked with Mike and Greg that they didn’t have any calendar conflicts, and then Shelley and I went to the airline’s website and booked our tickets.
Voila! We planned a trip in under an hour!
The Value of Commitment
Now we know we’re going.
We all have things we want to do that we somehow never get around to doing. Often it’s a travel adventure, but it can also be other things, like learning to play the violin, learning to paint, or getting back in touch with a childhood friend. We forget that life is limited, and we let daily (and often unimportant) activities get in the way.
Making a commitment makes things happen. Prior to buying the plane tickets, Shelley and I could have talked endlessly about when and where we’d like to travel in Portugal and Spain without ever actually leaving home.
Once we committed money, however, we knew we were going to go.
Yes, there are still hotels to be booked, event tickets to be reserved, and restaurants to be considered. But all that research would have just been a fun alternative to scrolling through Instagram until we actually committed to the trip and bought the plane tickets.
I know some of you reading this, especially if you are maximizers, may be thinking that you would have needed to spend hours and hours researching whether the dates were the best time of year for weather or festivals and which cities are the absolute best examples of history and culture for the area.
I will admit that by making a decision so quickly, there might be better choices that could have been made. There is a chance that we will arrive a day too late or leave a day too early to catch a fun, local festival. And there could be different itineraries that would enable us to see more castles or museums.
But it doesn’t really matter.
No matter how much we research and plan, we can never do it all and there is no perfect trip. Making a choice to do one thing always means missing out on something else. Already, in talking about our plans, I’ve had people express disappointment that we’re missing out on the wonderful places they visited in northern Portugal and Spain.
The important thing is we’re actually going. And if we love it as much as I think we will, we can plan another adventure to the northern part of both countries at a later time. If we had agonized over creating the perfect trip, however, we’d still be talking about it, and another year or two would pass. Making the commitment means we’re going.
The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.
Amelia Earhart
The Details
As I mentioned before, there are still details to be ironed out – where we are staying, how we are getting around, and what we want to do when we’re there. Having committed money to buying plane tickets, however, gives us the push we need to make these decisions.
Even the worst procrastinator can usually make a decision once the issue becomes urgent. Knowing you don’t want to be sleeping on a park bench in Portugal adds some urgency to your decision making.
The constraints created by the quick itinerary Shelley and I wrote out also makes it easier for us to figure out where we want to stay and what we want to do.
Looking at beautiful homes in fun places on Airbnb or VRBO is entertaining. (Come on, I know I’m not the only one who does that for fun!) But it can also be overwhelming. Once you know you want to be in a specific city on a specific date with a specific number of people, your choices are decreased significantly. That might sound like a bad thing – in the U.S., we’ve been taught “more is better” – but it’s actually very helpful. It’s far easier to make a choice between five options than between five hundred!
And each choice you make makes the next one even easier. Choosing where you’re going to stay gives you an area of a city to research more closely for restaurants. Or maybe the hotel staff or the owner of the home rental offer you suggestions of the best place to go to see flamenco dancers. Like a puzzle, the pieces start fitting together in a natural way.
Think of it as ordering a meal in a restaurant. The initial decision might feel difficult – do I want to order chicken or steak? Once you make that decision, however, the subsequent decisions are easier – how do you want your steak cooked? – and you stop worrying about the rest of the menu. Then when your food arrives, taking the first bite isn’t a difficult decision at all!
Caveats
Pushing yourself to quickly plan and commit to a travel adventure is great if you tend to overthink or procrastinate.
If, however, you have a history of creating problems for yourself because of being too impulsive, this probably isn’t a behavior you need to practice. Instead, you may want to write down the outline of your plan and then sit on it for a day or talk it over with a friend who can identify potential problems. Then, after just a little bit of extra thought, buy your plane ticket.
Know Thyself
When planning a travel adventure, it’s important to know yourself. As just discussed, if you tend to obsess and overthink, push yourself to be spontaneous and say “yes” sooner than you would normally. If you tend to be impulsive, stop and think through the plan before committing.
Knowing yourself and your style of traveling can also help you to make quicker decisions when planning. If you know what countries are high on your bucket list, it’s easier to watch for opportunities, such as cheap plane tickets. Knowing how comfortable you are with driving in a foreign country will decide for you whether you rent a car or how close you need to stay to public transportation.
Knowing what activities you enjoy also helps. If you don’t enjoy visiting museums, there’s no need to spend time researching museums. On the other hand, if you love spending time in a new art museum, figuring out which city has the most art museums could make it easier to decide where to stay.
The world is full of endless possibilities. None of us can do and see everything, but knowing yourself and what you enjoy can help you narrow down those possibilities.
Independent Travel
There are many reasons why people who want to plan their own unique travel adventure don’t do so. For some, they believe the planning will be overwhelming and they don’t have the time. Hopefully you now realize the basics of your adventure can be planned in a relatively short amount of time. Once you have created the basic outline, you’re well on your way to creating your own itinerary.
Where would you like to go next? Can you make a quick outline of a plan to visit there? And what can you do today to commit yourself to making your travel dreams a reality?
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