The Trip that Didn’t Go As Planned (& What I Learned From It)
Some of you may know I recently took a trip to Ireland. I know, I know…with the world currently being upside, it’s hard to believe I found the desire to go through with it. It’s a trip I had planned for over a year but as the time drew nearer, I started getting cold feet about it especially after all the horrible world events started unfolding more frequently. I hadn’t been on a leisure trip since the world shut down in 2020, let alone an international one. Suddenly, I started dreading ever having scheduled the trip and wondering what leaving my little bubble of California would feel like again. But, I also wondered if I’d regret it if I I backed out and when a chance to travel again would become available. So, I went ahead with it. And my goodness, it was not at all the trip I had hoped for. In fact, at times, it was a bit of a nightmare. But, as with most things in life, I trudged ahead and tried to come away with at least a bit of insight.
So as I sit here trying to recover in solitude, here’s what I now realize I learned from this recent trip.
You can plan a trip way in advance, but you can’t plan for the trip. Literally every detail of this trip was planned, but in the end, I had no control over anything. It’s what to be expected with travel and you have to be in the right frame of mind to accept that. I don’t think I was. So it made the trip 10x harder to cope with in some moments. You have to “plan” for the unexpected, which is what I didn’t, and everything I thought would never happen, did.
If you get sick, listen to your body and don’t force yourself to participate in the trip. You will be glad you listened. No matter where you are in the world or what time zone you’re in, when your body needs to rest, it will tell you and you’ll do good to listen to it. I know I missed out on a lot of activities but I don’t regret staying back and resting because it made my flight home that much easier.
If you miss out this time, you can try your best to return and have a better trip next time. Now this one obviously takes time, planning and money but if you really want to return to a location and make the best of it, you can make it a point to do so. I’m fortunate that this was actually my second time visiting Ireland and if I ever do return, I’m just going to play it by my rules. Even if it means staying in one location for a whole week and living like a local, that sounds like a pretty satisfying trip to me!
4. Life really can change in a moment- for better or worse- so cherish everything. Not to be dramatic or anything but when I first got struck with food poisoning on my trip, I wasn’t sure what was happening and my first thought was that I was dying- or could die- on the trip. I don’t know how the the medical industry works in a foreign country (I don’t even know how it works in THIS country) but I assumed unless I had collapsed, there was no option to see a doctor. I worried that I would die in a foreign country without ever seeing my loved ones and pets again and somehow, that really shook me. I came home with more appreciation for my every day life than I have in a long time (maybe that was the universe’s plan all along?). Dorothy was right: there’s no place like home. And travel always reminds me of that.
