I’m fully aware that there are many people out there, probably better writers than me who already wrote about this topic but I’m not really the type of person who are bothered by others ☺️😁 I thought I’ll still write this down and if you read it, Thank You and I hope it will help and if you don’t, it’s also perfectly fine ☺️

When I first decided to travel longer (3months in South America), I planned everything. Where to go, what to see, bought Lonely Planet South America on a Shoestring, printed out infos of every country, I did everything to plan it perfectly. Then we left, travelled and literally nothing was by my plans… we went to different places, saw different things and barely ever used Lonely Planet. Why is that? Because you meet people. Want it or not, it will happen. And you talk…and they talk back… and then you’ll have a conversation. The same one, every single time. – where are you from?, – where are you travelling to?, how long you have been travelling for?, what’s the next destination? and when you tell them where you’ve been and they haven’t been there yet, discussion starts -is it worth going? -was it nice? -where did you stay? And then they tell you their experience and if you like it, you’ll change your plan accordingly and if they didn’t like it, you’ll definitely change the plan (or man up and still go there to experience it yourself). You’ll also meet people who you’ll get along so well, you make plans together and that could also change the plans you’ve previously had.

So my suggestion? Don’t plan. Or plan but just the basics. What you want to see (3 main things), what is that you want to do (party, snorkelling, diving, trekking,etc) and maybe know where you’d roughly go (the itinerary) but make sure you are flexible enough to be able to change it.

I just met a man today (I’m a banqueting manager in a golf club) who told me when he was travelling 10 years ago, he met a couple who were planning to travel around the world in a year. They planned everything so perfectly, when they met this guy, they liked the place and his company so much, they actually stayed longer in a place than they planned. And they were panicking, how will they achieve their target, they have to leave this place (even they didn’t want it to), they worried they won’t get to every place they were planning to..etc.

Worry… it’s a slow killer. Not worth it. ESPECIALLY when you are travelling. Why worry? The world is yours, you are surrounded by it, use it and take advantage of the fact, you can do it. So forget the strict plans and the worry and just be flexible and bring the most out of it. Just enjoy, you live once ☺️