3 Things I Learned While Travelling During the Pandemic

Something you may not know about me is my sense of adventure and need for exploration - or maybe you do.

I wanted to share this because as a learning professional, my belief is that everything has a learning experience, and if something resonates for you and you take away a piece of something for yourself, gold!

If you knew me in my twenties, you would have known that I spent the better part of that decade living out of a suitcase, going anywhere and everywhere that my heart (and free accommodations) took me. Travel and adventure still continued to be a big part of my life well after I started my career - some of the biggest highlights of my life have been solo adventures.

I've been blessed to be able to satiate that sense of adventure, but when the Pandemic began I hadn't realized that the very part of what makes me ME would have to be packed away (literally - I packed all my suitcases and travel-related things away).

My situation, being the main caretaker of my elderly parents, is that I needed to be extra careful to keep them safe. But, as the Pandemic wore on (and on) it really started to take a negative mental toll. Even when travel restrictions started lifting, I found myself to be in a place of anxiousness thinking of all the negative ways travel would impact my life. So I didn't. When my friends started to take trips, I would be envious and thought back to happy times when I would be in a similar mental state - full of wonderment and excitement. I really longed for that.

Late in 2021, after carefully weighing out all the pros and cons, I decided it was time for me to book a trip. This is where things kind of aligned and I decided on Austin, Texas to visit someone I'd known for some time. I booked the trip for Jan 2022, and started doing the count down, I was SO excited!

As the time got closer, the Omicron variant took over and my trip hung in the air (sorry for the travel pun). Ultimately, the planner in me took over and I made a series of plans to deal with "what-if" scenarios but at the end of the day, I decided I was still going. And so I went, and it was truly something I needed to do for myself for a variety of reasons.

As a reflective practitioner, I thought of learnings this experience taught me and it was greater lessons than I ever expected.

1. ?Be authentic to your true self - I put away pieces of what it meant to be me to keep my people safe. I made that sacrifice when no one asked me to. While I was living with that sacrifice, I felt completely inauthentic to not be able to chase adventure.
2. ?Be brave - one of the toughest things I've done was to say "I'm going" to myself, to my loved ones, and to the surprise of many people. Bravery was necessary because I wanted to give myself a chance to be authentically me, and it required facing the possible repercussions of a global pandemic.
3. ?Be comfortable with being uncomfortable - one of the things I quickly realized was that I missed the journey itself -- being at the airport, the duty-free shops, the lounges, being on the plane (yes, I'm THAT person!), and landing in a new and unfamiliar place. My journey both ways had hiccups - I even had to spend an unplanned extra night in Austin, so at points I was totally uncomfortable. Being uncomfortable is the only way we can actually grow and learn. Things always work out in the end, but being OK with not knowing how things might work out is the biggest takeaway of all.

If you're wondering whether or not to take the jump (for a trip or otherwise), I hope that the things I learned for myself resonates with you. Ultimately, in our own journeys sometimes we are so affected by the unknown that we talk ourselves out of doing things that we want to do for ourselves. Face your fears friends, it will always end up in your favour! So my questions for you are where will you go from here, and where shall I go next??