Overcoming Travel Anxiety
You can’t tell, but behind my glasses on this Spanish train are red-ribbed eyes. 😭 I wasn’t anxious in this 2022 photo, but things definitely go wrong when traveling and it’s okay to get upset.
Do you remember sitting in class as a kid? You know the answer to the question. Your heartbeat quickens. Butterflies in your stomach. Your hand shoots up. Heart is pounding now. The teacher calls on you. You answer and everything slows back to normal.
I mean, you're an adult now so you know this sensation as adrenaline (or, if you’re a fellow Millennial or younger—anxiety). Maybe you weren't a bookish brown-noser like I was, so perhaps your adrenaline kicked in somewhere else like defending your box on the soccer field or kissing your crush underneath the bleachers (do kids really do that? or is it just in movies? 🤔). Maybe your anxiety kicked in when you didn’t know the answer to the teacher’s question. I'm going to guess these days—whatever it was—isn't about to spike your adrenaline anymore.
I used to get a big hit of adrenaline when I travel. Not so much these days. I became confident. Curious. Unfazed. Ready to try something new. Something different. I don’t really think of myself as adventurous but other people tell me I am. I promise you right now: there are people out there right now who think you are adventurous! Also, you don’t have to be—or feel—adventurous to travel. If you want to go… go! And if you’re scared: Go Scared!
Helping injured sea turtles all night get back to the ocean after laying their eggs wasn’t nearly as glamorous as it looks in this 2010 photo, but unforgettable memories like these don’t happen without some growing pains. Also, look at all those megapixels. 😂
So if you still get those butterflies in your stomach about traveling, I say: you are one of the lucky ones! Revel in that feeling. These are the good kind of nerves. You are widening your comfort zone. You are exploring new territory. You are expanding your horizons—literally and figuratively!
But maybe my view has done little to quelch your nerves and you’re thinking “HAH! Easy for you to say!” and you’re right, it’s easy to say NOW, but I’ve been there. It was the tearful phone call made to my mom from a pay phone in the Orlando airport when I was 14, crying and begging to come home instead of spending a summer building houses in Ecuador. 😥 It was the first morning waking up in Costa Rica thinking, “Three months?! What did I just do?!” 😩 It was the first day of my honeymoon when “hacker fare” left us stranded—and me in tears—in the Orlando airport, facing a big expense to get to Rio. 😅 (Come to think of it… maybe I should just avoid the Orlando airport! 😂 )
You want these teenagers tying rebar and pouring the footer for your home? What about taking down your clay tile roof and installing a new corrugated metal one? Yeah, if we were bring honest, we didn’t want to be there either, but 2004 was a summer of valuable life lessons.
Each of those experiences pushed me out of my comfort zone. Ultimately, those journeys (and others) led to a lifelong love affair with traveling. It’s true what they say: “Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.” —Paul Theroux. So when you see the beautiful photos and travelogs from your friends—or even from me!—please don’t forget that there are always moments of stress left out of the photos. There are always days of second-guessing that leads up to a trip. Booking things is both easy and hard. Packing things is both easy and hard. But you can do it. 💪🏻
Let yourself stumble. Actually go a step further and expect some things to go wrong when you travel. Maybe the highs are only as high as the lows are anyway. Whatever happens, it will all be ok in the end. And maybe, just maybe—like me—you’ll be happier for it. ♥️
There is no better feeling than parking the car in the airport Green Lot (you know, the good one that costs the least, and always picks you up within 3 minutes?) just as the sun is peaking up over the horizon and you have a flight to catch. [This is my husband, but you get the point.]
Update: I just learned about a brand new service called Dial a Pilot that lets you schedule a 15 minute call with a licensed pilot to talk about how safe your journey is, what delays there could be, where there may be turbulence, etc… Genius!