What makes me pull the trigger? I’ve been thinking about this lately. There are some travels I ruminate over (Egypt again at some point soon is one example). There are also the ones I play with on Google Flights whilst never really planning on taking that next step. And then there are the ones which I dream up, and then before I know it we’re going, bringing a trip into reality, making it happen.
I guess one aspect is its ease. Short distance. Easy to execute. I’m not likely to go to Japan on short notice (although I have done that before), but Italy? Sure. I still remember when my partner suddenly declared on the London underground that we should go somewhere this weekend, and by the end of that tube journey we had booked a trip to Copenhagen. Or the time my friend and I spent the weekend in Spain. We decided we were having so much fun that we found the cheapest flights available and ended up in Malaga the next day rather than go home. ‘Cheap’, ‘optimal’, fitting somehow well into my plans — these are also words that make it easier to make that impulse decision.
The other factor is the sense of carpe diem. The sense that if travel’s something I care about, it should be there, on the horizon, within my plans, squarely in my calendar. I guess this is what it means to follow your core values, to remember to live what’s important to you. When you realise that you can actually go, it’s actually possible, you don’t have to dream it up and hope one day… That’s a beautiful thing when it comes to travel. It’s not just a fantasy, it’s my reality. Even if I’ve got two kids under 4 coming along with me.
And the last sense is probably that restlessness that gets me to plan any trip. It has to be mixed with a certain energy. The energy to do it. To say let’s get this over with. It might be hard, or scary, but to know it’s worth it in the end.
These three things can’t always be together, but when they are, it pretty squarely enables an impulse-buy trip.
In any case, this time it was a 6-hour train trip to Berlin with my boys. I’m about to hit ‘buy’. I want to see the last overseas Egyptian temple on my list, and visit the Egyptian museum there. I’m excited, but also filled with that sense of anxiety that I usually get when I do something like this. It’s that feeling of, ‘Should I really be doing this? But surely feeling like this – trepidatious and excited, looking forward to it and dreading it – is a sign that it’s something that will be worthwhile?’
Well, let’s see. I’ll be there next week.
Want to find out more about me and where I’m heading to next? Take a look here.
