How busy people can travel more

Two mindset shifts that make travel a possibility

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is about how busy people can travel more. Even
if you have a job and a family, it is

(00:27):
possible to have at least a few travel adventures. The
key is rethinking some common stories about what travel entails,
so travel tends to feature prominently in people's memories. My
guess is that you don't really remember a random week
from six months ago all that well, but you might

(00:50):
remember a week you spent in Yosemite National Parks six
years ago quite vividly. Our brains have a tendency to
pay attention to new experiences, which makes time seem more
thick and rich. Of course, one reason travel produces memories
is that we tend not to do it all that often,

(01:13):
or if you do, it's often that you are flying
to the same business location again and again, which may
not be all that memorable either. By its nature, leisure
travel won't be every day Travel tends to take time, effort,
and money, all of which can feel in short supply
during the busy years when people are building their careers

(01:36):
and raising their families. It makes sense. But when I
ask people what they'd like to spend more time doing,
travel comes up a lot. When I suggest people make
lists of one hundred dreams with their life goals, the
first third is often the thirty three places people would

(01:58):
most like to visit. So how can busy people travel more?
I know there are a lot of practical tips out there,
but in today's episode, I want to share two mindset
shifts that help make travel in the busy years slightly
more possible. The first is to get your head around
the idea that even if you have a family, you

(02:21):
don't need to do all your leisure travel with your family.
In particular, you don't need to travel with your spouse. Now,
I know, it is probably a lot more fun to
travel with your other half. Maybe you have limited paid
time off, it might seem wrong not to reserve that
PTO to travel with your family or at least your

(02:43):
significant other. But one of the big reasons people don't
travel as much as they want is that they can't
imagine bringing their kids to a certain place, or it
would be a lot more expensive to travel with their kids,
and they don't have coverage for those kids. Asking another
family member to stay with your three young kids for

(03:03):
five days is in fact a fairly big ask, But
if you have a co parent, that person can easily
be the coverage. You just obviously can't travel with him
or her. If both parties are interested in traveling more
but are stuck on the problem of paying to take
kids somewhere they might not really appreciate, or the problem

(03:26):
of finding overnight childcare, each parent could commit to covering
for the other for the equivalent of two long weekends
a year, or perhaps one week. The other party assumes
all parenting responsibilities, knowing that the co parent will pay
this back. The upside of this is that solo travel

(03:49):
can be easier and certainly less expensive. It's only one flight,
only one museum admission, only one meal at a restaurant.
I know some people are wary of traveling solo, though,
as a woman who has traveled by myself a reasonable amount,
I can tell you that if you keep your wits
about you, you're probably going to be fine. But if

(04:11):
you think it won't be fun, get a friend to
make the same arrangement with their spouse and travel together
with your friend. Or in my family, my husband and
I have both taken one of our older kids to
cool places. If you've got a good relationship with your teens,
they can be excellent travel companions while your spouse stays

(04:34):
with your other kids. As for a limited PTO, this
solo travel might not consume as many days off as
you think. If you are strategic, If you've got a
long weekend somewhere, you could take one extra day, leave
on Thursday afternoon or evening and come back Monday night.

(04:54):
That gives you at least three point five days somewhere.
Some folks use leave strategically around a day like July fourth.
It was a Thursday the year I am recording this,
and a lot of offices were closed both Thursday and Friday.
If you took one extra day, you could leave Tuesday
night and come back Sunday night, scoring at least four

(05:17):
point five days somewhere. In any case, in this spouse's
trade off scenario, both of you might be happier getting
to go somewhere you think is cool, versus both of
you spending time and effort and money doing things you
are less happy about. Just because you think it as
a rule that everyone has to spend their days off together.

(05:39):
It isn't If you change that mindset, all sorts of
possibilities open up, and the second mindset shift you don't
have to go somewhere for long for it to be fun. Yes,
travel itself, as in the process of getting from point
A to point B, is often not that enjoyable. It

(06:03):
can be more of a necessary evil. But people tend
to think that if they flew or drove all that way,
they should stay a long time. The corollary of that
is that if they can't stay a long time, it
isn't worth it. I would encourage you to get rid
of that story right now. The travel time is a

(06:24):
sunk cost of going somewhere cool. It takes about seven
hours to fly from Philadelphia to Paris, whether you go
for fourteen days, four days, or zero days. If you
can't go for fourteen days, that doesn't mean zero is
the only other option. You can go to Paris for
a long weekend. Even though it was a short trip,

(06:48):
you'll still have been to Paris. Whereas if you decide
all that flying is too much bother, then you won't.
I'm not talking about every weekend, but going somewhere at
least semi exotic twice a year well why not. Well,
of course there is the cost, but as with the

(07:08):
travel time, the getting there is somewhat of a set cost,
however much time you spend there. Yes, it can be
expensive to fly cool places, but if you can't fly
there for a month, that doesn't mean you shouldn't go.
I would also note that if you are flexible about
where you go, you can often find some reasonable deals

(07:29):
if you are looking. I was poking around online recently
and found that flights to Dublin from Philadelphia were literally
one thousand dollars cheaper than flights to Madrid for the
same days. I am not sure why, but if your
hope was to travel more and you are flexible about

(07:50):
where you are going, that suggests letting the serendipity of
the airline pricing system guide you. If you are traveling solo,
that is probably not too hard to pull off. In
any case. By letting go of the idea that you
have to travel with your family or at least your spouse,

(08:11):
and letting go of the idea that you have to
travel for a long time to make it worthwhile, you
can open up a lot more possibilities. Maybe in a
perfect world you could spend two months a year traveling
and always travel with your significant other. But the alternative
to that isn't doing nothing. Do things a little differently,

(08:34):
and you just might have some more travel in your future.
In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for

(08:55):
listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

(09:18):
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.