1. Make your happiness your first priority
Like the look of that ice cream but can’t squeeze into your jeans a mere three-weeks into your trip overseas? Buy new jeans. Go with your gut (pun intended), eat what you feel like, do everything that interests you, say yes to new experiences, and say no to those you don’t want to engage in, even if everyone else says it’s a ‘must do’. Do all the things that YOU want to do.
2. Get outdoors
You won’t go anywhere inside your hotel room… unless its between the bed and mini bar fridge. Which isn’t going to be very far anyway. Wake up early, seize the day, get home late, and sleep when you’re dead. Who knows when you’ll be back here again! Make the most of it.
3. Notice and Enjoy the small things
Stop to look at the flowers, smell the street food, speak to a stranger… and so on and so forth. Don’t get caught up in doing all of the “must see sights” and miss all the little things about your destination. Look up, turn around, take a wrong turn… BE ADVENTUROUS!
4. Focus on the present
Technology has changed the way we communicate and that’s not a bad thing – but it’s also not exclusively a good thing. If you want to update everyone back at home about your adventure, go ahead. But as soon as you’ve done so, PUT DOWN THE SMART PHONE and be in the present. Home will always be right there when you return and 99% of the time nothing has changed. And if it did, what’s so bad about that?
5. Stay positive
So you got mugged, but you learned a lesson out of it, right? You locked yourself out of your room and were forced to go to the reception desk in your underwear….. but it made a good story didn’t it? Go with the flow, laugh at yourself, turn your tears into laughter and remember it’s all about the experience.
6. Forget what anyone else thinks about you
Wear what you want, speak as loud as you want, dance in the streets, make a fool of yourself for your own entertainment… you won’t see these people again in your lifetime! Spread happiness and laughter wherever you go.
7. Try new things
The food, the language, the culture… embrace it! Throw in a “danke schön” when you take your change and greet people in your terrible French accent but with a grin on your face. Have fun with it!
8. If you don’t want anyone to find out about it, don’t do it
If you’re tossing up between something being a good or bad idea and think you might regret it when you get home, remember you have to still live with these decisions when you get home. It’s one thing to ‘try new things’ and it’s another thing to do something you will regret.
9. Go without a plan
“Put down the map and get gloriously lost”….
10. CARPE DIEM!
Sieze the day.
Brooke Saward founded World of Wanderlust as a place to share inspiration from her travels and to inspire others to see our world. She now divides her time between adventures abroad and adventures in the kitchen, with a particular weakness for French pastries.
