It’s one minute past midnight and just like that it’s not only a new day but a brand new year. Celebrating the New Year offers us a chance to mentally wipe the slate clean and serves as an imaginary deadline for breaking old habits and starting fresh with new ones. Traditionally, a new year brings with it promises to do better in the coming months. It can be a time of reinvention, rebuilding and taking stock. Some will vow to lose weight, others to embrace changes to add to their quality of life. Travel falls into that second category and can not only improve the quality of your life but can often provide life changing moments. This time of year is also replete with top 10 lists, so I offer mine in reference to improving your life through travel.
- Try a new mode of vacationing: If you usually take a cruise, consider flying to an island that you haven’t yet visited. Try one that isn’t a port of call for ships carrying thousands of people. Enjoy the tranquility of an under crowded beach and an unscheduled day. If you often choose to vacation at an all-inclusive resort where your meals, drinks and entertainment are included in the package price consider staying at smaller local accommodations where only the price of room is included. You will have the freedom to try the locally owned restaurants and meet the islanders at a beach front bar.
- Visit a new destination: It’s great to find a place that you love. It’s even better when you revisit that same place because you love it so much. But, how will you ever be sure that there isn’t something that you’ll enjoy even more? It’s a bit like dating. Don’t be so quick to go steady until you’ve experienced a few different “types.” You can always go back to your first love if you wish. It will welcome you back and you’ll be confident in your choice.
- Try new foods: Cruises and all inclusive resorts are among the most popular forms of travel today. They offer a good value and an abundance of food, with enough options to allow you to try something different from your usual rote order. If you’re in an international city, sample the local cuisine. Try a different restaurant every day and be brave with your selections. One really good meal or one really bad meal will give you something to recall with pride or laughter, for years.
- Mix up your accommodations: Standard options in a chain style hotel offer little variance from the common lay out of a large room with either two double beds or 1 king size bed and your separate bathroom and closet. Villas offer luxury and often private pools and a staff that cooks and cleans for you and condos offer lots of space. If you’d like something really different, today’s options can include something as unique as an ice hotel where your room and communal buildings are all made of, what else, ice.
- Travel solo: Do you usually travel with an escorted group? If you like the experience of an escort but dread the seat roulette on the bus or have found yourself waiting for that one couple that is late for everything, try a small group experience. You can downscale to a more upscale style of travel that includes no more than 20 people. If you wish, you can also travel just as a couple with as much or as little preplanning as you wish and if you really want to go solo, there are packages for you as well.
- Rock the boat: Ahoy, Cruisers: How about adding a bit of luxury to the high seas. If you usually reserve a standard cabin, you might want to try a room with a window that offers an outdoor view. Reserve a balcony cabin and grab some private outdoor “space”. Or for an extra nice experience, reserve a suite with all the extra amenities that might come with that category, such as a larger room, upgraded linens and, preferred service. Sometimes the room category offers upgraded restaurant options and depending upon the cruise line, butler service. It doesn’t get any better than that!
- Meet the locals: The best part of travel is experiencing new cultures, meeting new people and being introduced to different ways of life. Day tours often offer a limited overview of an area or a culture. Imagine if you participated in a program where you actually got to visit a local in their own home and perhaps share a meal with them. A hands on volunteer program would allow you to work side by side with locals as well as leaving behind a positive contribution to their continued well being.
- Add something new to your list of accomplishments: Have you always wanted to hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu or attempt the summit of Kilimanjaro, Africa’s tallest mountain, locally known as “Kili”. Maybe you harbor a simpler wish like parasailing or taking cooking lessons in Tuscany. Interested in learning a new language? Many will tell you that it’s easier to learn to speak French while in France.
- Keep an actual written journal: it’s easy to whip out a digital camera or the ever present phone, but neither can capture the sensation of new tastes, smells or your feelings quite like the written word. Nobody has to read it unless you wish to share. Writing down your experiences will help you to focus on the day’s adventure, recall the highlights and capture your emotions.
- Make a new friend while visiting a new place: Resolve to stay in touch. Maintaining that connection allows you to relive your experience whenever you wish. It brings variety and an international flavor to your comfortable routine and maybe even holiday greetings from Argentina or the Czech Republic or some other far flung part of the world. Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind? Absolutely not! Always remember that peace starts with just one handshake across a border, one friend in another land and one shared memory.
"Postcards" 