[trip style = any]
In a month where most people are thinking about what they'd like to change or accomplish in the year ahead, I find myself confronted by the fact that there's never a convenient time to travel. Life at home a-l-w-a-y-s beckons. Add to this getting stuck on a hamster wheel of trip research and your trip style = ??? gets stalled in Swiss-mode, aka neutral territory.
----> Hello, my name is Trish, and I have a problem: failure to take off.* *which I realize sounds crazy coming from me, but I can get so wrapped up in researching that the big trips I dream-plan either never happen or I take years to get there.
I want to admit this problem---and I realize there are WAY bigger woes in this world---at this early juncture of 2013 because I think other people might suffer from it too. Failure to take off is defined in two parts: a} pondering a trip and never taking it; b} 90% planning a trip yet taking forever {read: years} to commit.
Carpe Diem and just #$%^&*^ go! Commit to a night or two of planning---as in, make a date of it---and then hit the commit button. The first step is the hardest, but remember: there's always time to fill in the blanks leading up to the trip. When my husband and I finally committed to Thailand last year {after months of planning} one of the hotels we wanted wasn't available. But here's the thing: there's always another hotel, another area to discover, another... whatever. If there's one thing I've learned as an over-planner and over-researcher, it's this: when we hold our travel loosely, magic tends to happen.
11.07am, December 28, 2012: I'm currently dream-planning a few trips for 2013, but I find myself stalled, stranded in a virtual airport of options.
7:09pm, January 1, 2013: I'm committing to a trip to South America, either Argentina or Colombia, and I'm just in the process of gathering my last few airline points so I can fly there and back biz class. YOLO {you only live once}.
[photo by @tripstyler]