We have all been there… you show up at the airport and realize you are a day early/late or you pack five pairs of shoes thinking that those killer stilettos are essential only to live in a pair of flats for the entire trip. Yup, I am guilty of a few travelling mistakes…. Here are my run-down of the most frequent:
1. Check the time, date, and AIRPORT
It is by far the most embarrassing moment when you arrive at the airport and realize that you mis-read your flight information. To all those folks travelling in the London (England) area, be weary of the multiple airports. I was heading to Budapest and as I arrived at Luton airport I noticed I was meant to go to Gatwick… oops! Not my best moment and missing a flight can be incredibly frustrating, expensive, and a plain ol’ waste of time. So double, triple, quadruple check your travel plans.
2. Over-packing
I believe that the notion of travelling ‘light’ is an absolute myth. Every trip oversees, I always tell myself that this time I will take only the bare minimum. Yet for some reason by luggage always weighs about the same… so annoying! With that said, I am getting better at estimating how much shampoo I will actually need (often not much thanks to the wonderful hotel samples) and coming to term with the fact that two pair of shoes is more than I need. What I will NEVER cut-back on is underwear, I bring just about as many pairs as days I will be travelling… TMI?
3. Too much to see too little time
The picture below is an incredibly unflattering photo that I call the dead bug. It was snapped in Paris after a whirlwind 3 days with persistent jet lag. Although I saw all the major highlights in Paris that year, I honestly remembered nothing! There was so much I wanted to see and did not want to drop any items from the list. The down-side is that Paris turned out to be a frantic sightseeing experience, instead of a true relaxed Parisian experience. For any destination, the most memorable experiences are often those un-scheduled activities like sitting in a coffee shop and absorbing the local culture. So don’t pack on to many activities.
4. Treating the destination like a zoo
I am sure many of us are guilty of landing in a foreign country and feeling as though there is a large divide between ‘us’ (the tourists) and ‘them’ (the locals). With globalization it’s pretty easy to travel and never have to leave the comforts of our homes, there is a Starbucks or MacDonalds in almost every major city after all. It’s tempting to avoid the local food markets, and default to English when trying to communicate, but I think that takes away from what the travel experience should be. Don’t be afraid to immerse yourself in the places you visit (keeping in mind basic safety rules) and learn to feel comfortable with the feeling of instability that comes from it. That’s when the true rewards of travelling will begin to unveil themselves.
5. Spending more time behind the lens than in front of it
Those damn digital cameras and the quest for the perfect shot. Just because we can now take hundreds (and thousands) of pictures doesn’t mean we should. I am always amazed when I come home from a trip and realize that none of my pictures quite do the experience justice. Sure, I can get close to recalling a feeling with an image but the reality is that most times I should focus more on the present than on snapping away pictures.
