So here we are one week out.  Its hard to believe but this time next week we’ll be sitting on what will be the first of three planes for the long haul to New York City.  I’ve done this so many times, yet I’m still kind of excited.  I guess if I wasn’t I would not keep travelling.  I would have stopped way back when I had that ‘One Big Trip of a Life Time’.

That ‘Trip of a Life Time’ seems to be an ongoing thing interspersed with work.  That’s one of the things I try to tell people who are going on there very first RTW and busily trying to cram every interesting highlight around the world into one trip all on the basis that this is The Trip.  That one and only time they will get to travel.

Now I know if that’s you you will not listen.  Still here it goes.  Slow down.  Take a few of those ‘must see’ places out of your rough itinerary and enjoy your trip.  Give yourself space to breath.  To stop and look around the strange and fascinating places and cultures you find yourself in.  There is more to travel than seeing the Taj Mahal! You’ll have great days.  You’ll also have some pretty bad ones.  Somehow, later down the track those become good days as well. 

If you go to fast and pack to much into that trip it will become nothing more than a blur of busses, trains, ferries, planes and waiting around various terminals to depart to yet another destination.

So in that planing phase of your RTW take a breath.  Then take that red pen and start crossing out a few of those ‘must see’ places. Personally I do not see the ‘Trip of a Life Time’ as just being one trip.  Its been many trips some big, some small throughout my life to date.  The next one is to New York, only for three short weeks.  I’ll enjoy it anyway.  Then when I get home I’ll start planning and saving for the next one.