New Year’s Resolution: World Travel

New Year’s Resolution: World Travel

Do you watch TV and eye longingly at the warm beaches depicted in vacation commercials? Grow green with envy as your coworker uploads picture after picture to Facebook of world landmarks and travel hotspots? If you’ve always wanted to travel but couldn’t find the time, money, or even settle on a destination, maybe a New Year’s Resolution to travel in 2015 suits you. Here are our recommendations on how to accomplish this goal in 2015 and become the world-traveler you’ve always wanted to be:

Choose a Place

While for the purposes of this article we must be very general, for your travel goals, you must be very specific. Don’t just say you want to travel to Europe. It’s a big place. Zero in on what you specifically want to see, enjoy, and accomplish. A week in Italy? North, south, central, or even Sicily? You may want to visit both the Shroud of Turin and the ruins of Pompeii, but they’re nearly 1000km apart. Be realistic and specific. Likewise, you may dream of visiting Hawaii, but there are hundreds of islands. Kauai, for example, has two different and beautiful shores, but one receives far more sun than the other. So don’t just nebulously say you want a beach vacation – zero in on Hotel X in Naples, Italy, or Hotel Y, on the north sore of Kauai.

Timeline and Agenda

Be realistic about what you can accomplish in your planned timeline. You can accomplish as much with a lazy 3-day beach vacation as you can with a two-week one. But if you want to ski all of Whistler’s slopes, a long weekend isn’t going to cut it. Jot down the activities you hope to enjoy and landmarks you hope to see, then calculate what length of time is realistic to accomplish your goals. Either add time or trim activities to make it fit your schedule and budget.

Read and Research

No matter where you choose to travel this year, this recommendation holds. Especially if your vacation is months or weeks away, read everything you can on the topic. Ask family, friends, and associates who have traveled to the destination for advice, hidden gems, and places to avoid. Watch movies, read books (both fictional and factual), even scout on Google Maps. The more information you have in your arsenal, the more you can enjoy the trip and spend time discovering hidden gems of your own, not simply trying to orient yourself.

Set a Date

Sometimes even the most eager potential traveler can be foiled by the reality of scheduling. It may seem like there’s never a convenient time to go, and you can always delay and delay a dream vacation, keeping it firmly in the realm of imagination. If you want to be a world traveler, the first step is to book, then to go. It’s that simple. Once you’re on that plane, all the worries of your daily life float away, and you can focus on enjoying the journey. If you always talk yourself out of it because you don’t believe you can make time, then you’ll never reach your destination. So set a date, stick to it, and let the adventure begin.

We wish you amazing world travels in 2015!


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