5 Tips To Help Ease Travel Anxiety
Recently I came across a perfect word to describe travel anxiety- the word is RESFEBER. Swedish in origin, it means, "The restless race of the traveler's heart before the journey begins, when anxiety and anticipation are tangled together."
5 Tips to Help Ease Travel Anxiety
I have a confession to make, I totally get anxious when I travel! I am such an introvert in real life which means a lot of unknowns make me feel really anxious, but with all this anxiety involved with traveling, you might be asking yourself, is traveling really worth it?
With today's technology you can almost go anywhere with just the click of a button and a smart phone and totally negate those anxious feelings all together. After all traveling pushes your buttons, takes you out of your comfort zone and into the unknowns and for a lot of us, (me included!) that is super scary.
Anthony Bourdain once said,
“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.”
When I started Mariposa Skies I had to not only learn the business side of it but, I had to navigate foreign lands while negotiating customs and cultures I was very unfamiliar with, and that can be overwhelming in it and of itself.
But I've learned when it comes to travel I cannot let my anxiety stop me from experiencing new places. So you may be asking, how did you overcome your travel anxiety?
With 15+ years of traveling this great world, I have been able to teach myself some great hacks to help ease my travel anxiety so I can go about my work and not let my anxious feelings get in the way.
Every time I set off on a new adventure, I have used these five tips and without a doubt they have eased my travel anxiety tremendously. So now having tested these tips time and time again, I wanted to share my top five with you.
5 Tips to Help Ease Your Travel Anxiety
Tip #1: Sleep matters
Try not to sleep until it is nighttime at your final destination. It will help you get over the jet lag more quickly once you arrive. (This also helps on your trip back home.) It's not always possible due to fatigue, but when you can do it, it really works in your favor-it will help your body adjust to the time difference more easily thus making you feel more normal and less of that travel anxiety when you first arrive at your destination.
Tip #2: Create a routine
Once you have arrived- create a morning routine the very first day. Why morning? It gets you up, out and about. My pro tip- find a local coffee shop and go to that same coffee shop every morning. The people who work there will start to get to know you and remember you as well as what you like to order. It makes a new place that seems daunting or overwhelming much more friendly and like home. It also makes you feel like you can take on anything once you find a little bit of the familiar in a place that seems so unfamiliar.
Tip #3: Play the lost and found game
Spend the first full day after you arrive and are settled exploring the surrounding neighborhood of where you are staying. Don't venture beyond your neighborhood just yet. Make a point to get lost and find your way and then get lost again. The reasoning behind this madness is so you get your bearings for the place you will call home for the next several days, weeks, or months.
It will also help you get over the fear of loosing your way when you are in another part of the city. (Which will happen!) So this little game of lost and found will give you the confidence you need to find your way because you already got lost a few times before. Even the thought of getting lost in a new city can create a lot of travel anxiety, so before you head out for the more overwhelming parts of the town, explore and get lost in your neck of the woods first.
Tip #4: Observe and imitate
Take the time to observe what the locals do and imitate- even if you don't understand it quite yet. You will catch on. Plus, if you are observant and imitate then you are also being respectful of their culture and customs. But be careful not to mock. Often times we have travel anxiety because we get overwhelmed with thinking of all the differences between this new place and our familiar and cozy home- which makes this new place much scarier.
When we have travel anxiety our brains can't automatically connect to a different culture if we don't intentionally take time to do so. Observing will make what may seem strange to you, start to have a more familiar feel. And if you choose to partake then that really starts to connect you to a people and a culture, which in turn will bridge the gap between the "you" and "them" mentality. The whole point of travel is to learn and experience; observing and revering what locals do will help you see the humanity you have in common versus all the differences there are between your culture and theirs, thus easing your travel anxiety immensely.
Tip #5: Take time to rest
Don't always feel the need to go go go! Take a day to sit in a coffee shop or go to the park and eat some ice cream. Heck, even take a nap during the afternoon! If you are constantly going your body and mind will wear out and so will your patience, creating more travel anxiety. That definitely does not make for a fun traveling companion or if your traveling alone- makes you more irritable and not understanding when things go wrong. Which will create more of those anxious feelings in your body. This is the opposite of what you want while traveling this beautiful world- you want to enjoy your time. So don't feel guilty about taking time to just relax and do nothing for one day. You may just experience something you would have missed out on otherwise!
Be encouraged, because you are not the only one who has anxiety while traveling. Just don't let your travel anxiety stop you from seeing the world.
Traveling has the power to change your life. I would even venture to say it will become one of your greatest teachers in life. You will make a lot of mistakes, I definitely have and still do, but it is my hope for you that you will learn from these tips and take them with you on your next adventure.
So get out there and travel my friend!
Have you ever experienced travel anxiety? How did you get through it? Share with us in the comments below.
If you're still feeling too anxious to travel you can connect to another culture through their fashion! Check out these fashions from independent artisans in Japan and Morocco:
I hope you found these 5 tips to help ease your travel anxiety useful, hopefully they will help you on your next adventure. Please feel free to share it with your friends on Facebook and Pinterest. Thank you for taking the time to read it!