Overcoming the Fear of Travel
I’m a natural planner and I like to be in control of my outcome. But once we decide to travel, we inherently give over control of so many outcomes to others, from the pilot to the booking agent to the tour guide to the cooks and chefs preparing our meals. So how would I cope with my first international travel adventures? Read along for a glimpse into the thoughts that ran rampant through my head… and for how I deal with that today.
Our first venture out of our “bubble” was to Canada. We flew to Seattle and spent a few days there sightseeing, then we drive over the border into Vancouver, Canada for one day to take a whale watching tour. After we booked our flight to Seattle, I had many sleepless nights. I would just lay in the bed and think terrible thoughts like, “What if we can’t get back into the United States?” or “What if they don’t let us in and we paid lots of money for that whale watching tour?” I knew that all of these thoughts swirled in my head because I was taking my child, Ashley, who was then just 11 years old into another part of the world and it was just that I had a fear of the unknown. Needless to say, that little adventure to Canada turned out great and we had lots of fun! The whale tour was the highlight of that trip! We saw several pods of Orcas and we were able to see many of them breaching. We spent the night in Vancouver, and the next day went to Granville Island and to the Capilano Suspension Bridge. It was a wonderful 30-ish hours in Canada! The only “bad” thing that happened was that for some reason Canada didn’t stamp our passports (sad face) and we had some oranges in the car that they made us throw away at the border control. International Travel Lesson #1: fruits and veggies are not allowed to cross borders.
Since the trip to Canada was successful, I decided to look into another trip. I started searching for places to go and ran across an all-inclusive trip to Costa Rica on Groupon (without plane fare). First of all, buying a trip to another country through Groupon was extremely scary to me. So, here’s what I did: I showed it to my husband, we talked about it, I got worried, I waited several days, the deal went off, I got upset and said I wished I had bought it, then the deal came back, I still pondered over it a few days and sleepness nights, my husband, Paul, and I talked about it again, Paul called the travel company that had the Groupon, we discussed it, then we ordered the Groupon! Oh my gosh….that went on for about a month before I could commit. Did I mention that I have a hard time with making decisions? So from that day until we left I cannot tell you how many nights I laid awake worrying for an hour or so before I fell asleep. I always fell asleep quickly until we started traveling outside the USA. Leaving my little safe “Bubble” was frightening. I had the same worries as I did going to Canada and now more. Here was some of my worries.: “What if the Groupon travel agency was fake?” (that was my worst fear I think), “Would Ashley eat the food and if not, would she starve that entire week? Should I pack granola bars?”, “What if we got robbed?”, “What if we got sick?”, “What if someone got sick in our families while we were gone and I could not get back?”, “What if we got snatched like the movie Taken?”, etc. So, I took all precautions that I could possibly take. Seriously I did!
Nevertheless, again, that trip was fabulous! It has been one of our best trips ever! That trip cost us around $2500 total for all three of us and we have some wonderful memories!
So what was it that caused me so much worry? I mentioned earlier the fear of the unknown. I think that’s a natural reaction that most people have, but one that I’ve had to learn to control. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told someone about our plans when they inevitably tell me something awful about that destination. I’m not sure why people do that. I suppose that they’re trying to help, but all it does is create undue stress in others. What’s worse, most of the well-intended advice doesn’t come from first-hand experience – it comes from a situation that they heard about or were told about. Realizing that, I’m now able to take most of that advice with a grain of salt.
I also mentioned that I like to know what’s coming so that I can be in control of my situation. Traveling abroad naturally creates many opportunities for the unplanned and loss of control. Not having traveled internationally, this was probably the most powerful factor that I was unaware of. I’ve learned that by making myself aware of what I can control I can more readily let go of the other factors that may be holding me back.
To cope with both of these, I use lists. I have a generic packing checklist and a special one for when we cruise and for when we go to Disney. I have checklists for what we need to do before we leave and for when we get back. I also make contingency plans where practical. For example, I make sure that we have printed copies of all tickets, boarding passes, reservations and so forth that have bee purchased in advance. Although much of this is available electronically, I don’t want to be in a situation where technology doesn’t work due to a bad signal or drained battery.
