Friends, I am in full blown vacation mode.
My flight to Denver is in 12 days and about 98% of my thoughts circle around travelling at the moment. So I decided I might use my time today and channel these thoughts in this posts.
When it comes to preparing for a trip everyone has their own little rites. The things you have to do and the things you enjoy doing. I greatly indulge in the latter. I spend so much time with ‘unimportant things’ that in the end I am packing my bags in headless chicken mode. I clouldn’t love it more than the way I do it though.
Priorities, people! Let’s have a look at mine, shall we?
1. Watching ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’
This is my favorite movie ever. No competition. When I think about it it is also my second and even third favorite movie ever. I saw it twice in cinema and I think about 20 times in total. The thing is I can only watch it with an upcoming trip in sight. It gives me such a prominent desire to go somewhere on an adventure that I tend to get a tad miserable when there’s nothing in the pipeline.
2. Bookmarking Articles about other travel destinations
Instead of researching the areas I’ll be going to I have develloped a weird satisfaction in reading and looking at pictures about other travel desinations. Pinterest is a huge time sucker for me right now. This time I am absolutely drawn to anything Iceland. I have Iceland on my travel bucket list for a while now (I blame Walter Mitty!) and right now I am kinda midst in planning a trip to Iceland I am not really intending to go onto in the near future.
3. Reading my travel books
One of the joys of having a trip coming up is to go and pick a book to take with me. Yet I often find myself casually leafing through this book and this time I even finished my book already. Ooops! In my defence it was a book about travel photography and my new (still unnamed) camera sparked an intense craving of soaking up everything photography related. Also the book was fairly easy to read and interestingly written. Definitely something I’d recommend to have a look at when you are beginning to make travel and street photograpghy your thing!
4. Hoarding stuff
I am really bad at this. Whenever I start my packing list I go into hoarding mode. I buy shampoo and shower gel even though I still have some at home. I buy travel sized tooth paste even though we’ll definitely need more. I’ll buy an adapter or two because we have a lot to charge pretty much all the time. This time I bought a softshell jacket even though I only know one place where I’ll probably need it. As mentioned above I’ll buy books. Two of them were hardcover books and they are too heavy to take them with me. I also buy food in quantities we won’t eat before we go. So we usually drop of some groceries at our relatives the da before we depart.
5. Being super social
The time before a longer trip is usually the most social time of the year. Because we try to catch up with everyone. So I find myself going out with friends a couple of times a week and I have already scheduled dinner with my dad, going to the movies with my mum and having a coffee with my sister. We see Stefan’s side of the family in Narnia and next to feeling burned out from work I feel burned out socially too. High time to hop on that airplane!
6. Compiling a Soundtrack
One thing I really enjoy especially on a road trip is to have my own personal soundtrack specifically compiled for this occasion. Maybe it’s just me but every trip feels a bit different and I like to have this feeling expressed by the music I listen to. Stefan doesn’t care as long as I don’t want to listen to the same three songs for 4 weeks on repeat. Yes, we have been there before. So I prepare a list of songs and aks my husband to make me a CD for the car. I also like to pack the Walter Mitty soundtrack. That music always feels right when travelling.
7. Reading through my old travel journals
I have dedicated a whole post to the wonderful reasons for keeping a travel journal. I love my old journals and when I have a hard time bearing my excitement reading through my old journals makes me a bit less bouncy. Excited me can be a tad annoying. Cheery but annoying. One thing is a bit weird though. I find it very odd to read something I have written in German. I feel like I don’t sound like myself. German is also not a very beautiful language and my journals are for sure anything but a piece of literature. I tend to speak about food and activities. Important stuff, you know!
8. Planning the Trip
Of course I also prepare for the upcoming trip. I research suggestions for what to do in the area I go to, book cars or tours that have to be pre-booked or research hiking trails. I make sure to have the right shoes and clothes packed and recharge all my electronic devices. I get enough of my medication and get me blood thinners and wash my thrombosis tights for the flight. Make sure the finances are sorted out. Sometimes I have figured out this whole adulting thing.
What are you doing before going on vacation?
I need to see The Secret Life of Walter Mitty now.
I make lists upon lists upon lists. I also research things to do it the city and then I chart it out and tell the Hubby what we’re going to do. He’s so easy going, he pretty much just says ok.
Then we always, always say, “Jon and Meghan on another adventure.” Now we’re going to have to start including Ave too.
I cannot believe I haven’t seen that movie. Knowing its your number one makes me want to see it!
Apart from finances and knowing all my tickets etc are printed off, I usually spend the week before a holiday finding even more places I want to see when away… Even though I know we won’t have time for all of them. Always end up finding more!