Français 
Why You Need To Stop Making Excuses And Just Travel
Let’s start this off with saying that people have excuses. Excuses that stopped or discouraged them from reaching their goals. Negative thoughts are a self-inflicting damage to the human mind.
Only if you become conscious of your pessimistic thoughts, then you have the chance to shift your mindset into the right direction. The direction of achieving your dreams.
Friends & family always wondered how I was able to travel as much as I did few years ago until I settled down in Thailand. I designed my life around to just go travel as early as possible.
My thoughts and approaches about career paths and financial finance made it possible for me. As I was 22 years old, I have already been to 18 different countries.
Stop Making Excuses
What is holding you back? People have different excuses to stay in their happy bubble but secretly wishing to break the habits and experience new things. Here are a few reasons that I’ve heard from others. Maybe you told a few of those yourself before.
- You don’t have the money
- You dislike history, art or culture
- You will not like the foreign food
- You hate hotel rooms
- You hate planes or trains
- You are thinking the world outside your hometown is scary
- The weather is too hot / too cold
- You enjoy being home
- You are career-driven
- You don’t want to go alone
- You think you are too old to travel
- You don’t like meeting new people
- Family and house obligations that prevent you
- You are waiting for ‘someday’
- You don’t have enough days off from work
That was a lot of negativity now. Guess what? All of the excuses listed to not just travel are just what they are… silly excuses. There is not a single valid excuses in this world that should prevent you from discovering our great world and its various cultures.
Start Working On Creating Chances
If you think that you won’t like the food abroad, then start to figure out why. Head to an ethnic restaurant in your hometown if it is the fear of the unknown.
Maybe you just really don’t exotic food, then start to research for restaurants with ‘westernized’ menus at your selected destination abroad.
You think, you don’t like history, art or culture in general? Do you love wine? Go visit a winery with over 20 countries to choose from that are famous for their wine growing. What about cars? More than 40 countries have auto museum that you can explore.
One big factor to all this is money. If you don’t have the money, then go out and visit your local museum or the state park.
There is always something new to discover to refresh your mind. Please don’t wait for someday. Someday might never come, maybe your health condition won’t allow travel at all anymore.
Then you have all the money in the world you need to go travel but not the body. Do it when you are young! Of all the excuses, waiting for someday is not an option. Someday may never come, so experience life to its fullest today.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s easy to say those things and staying perfectly happy. I myself had those excuses and I can see why they are affecting your decisions.
If traveling will really rob your bank or you’ve got responsibilities at home that need your attention right now, then it is perfectly reasonable to not travel. Having said that, start working on creating chances to travel as much as you can as early as possible. You will change for the better.
Just Travel
You might say now …”Oh well, I really don’t have the time to travel while working a full time job.” I am in the same situation as you right now. I know it can be hard to find the time and money but it is not impossible. I know it for myself, as I have already been in that situation many years ago and I managed to travel.
You don’t need to take big steps and rearrange your lifestyle only around travel. Start by taking small steps. First make travel your one of your priorities. Start by creating a travel fund, work overtime to either get extra vacation days or overtime pay and cut unnecessary expenses. You are not in a rush. Slowly build up your fund to reach your goal. In the end it will be all worth it.
Don’t Be Afraid To Take Your Vacation Days
Take your vacation days! It seems that the Americans are scared of losing their jobs. I have no experience with that as I am not from the States, but that is absolutely not the way it should be. Work hard and take vacation. Don’t forget that it is really important for your mental stability and health, overall productivity and performance at work.
How do you think will you be able to travel if you don’t take your vacation days? Take them and maximize our time off from work by arranging them with public holidays and weekends. You can get a 9-day holiday week by flying Friday evening and coming back home the week after Sunday. With a little planning, you then only have used 3 or 4 actual vacation days.
Go Travel Alone If You Have To
Your husband/wife, family or friends can’t have day off on the same days as you? This is not a reasons that should be holding you back. Don’t wait for the day on which someone wants to go where you want to go and when you want go.
You will be waiting for a very long time and won’t be able to visit the things you want to see at the destination as you have to agree on a travel plan with your companion. As much fun as it can be to travel with your friends, traveling alone has huge advantages as well.
The Smarter Salary Negotiation
Is it time for annual performance review already? Excited for that little pay rise around 3-4%? Maybe not, but have you considered to negotiate for a few extra days off? Don’t forget that you only live once and you are not just here to work. If the worst comes to worst, then take few unpaid vacation days and relax.
Making the decisions to spend money, ask the boss for the vacation permission and stepping away from other obligations can be a difficult situation if you never done it before. Stop making excuses and go ask your boss. If you never ask, the answer will always be no… Go and enjoy your travels… The rest is secondary.
