LET’S TALK TRAVEL STYLES

You’ve heard about personality types… but have you heard of travel styles? Well, me neither so let’s discover this together.

Whether it is your first time travelling or you 32nd time, it’s important to understand that your adventure isn’t going to look exactly the same as that travel influencer you follow on Instagram. For two reasons really. One being that everything on Instagram is curated to look perfect when reality might show otherwise. Two is that you are not the same person as that travel influencer. Your mind works in different ways, your body handles things differently, and your budget might not match there’s. There are a lot of factors that can determine what kind of traveller you are.

Your mind makes the decisions, it handles your emotions, and it keeps you going when you’re at your low points (and yes, you will have low points when travelling – that’s life). So, how do you work out the best travel style for your mind? Trial and error unfortunately. Before I started booking my 2023 Europe trip, I was determined to leave some places unplanned so I could be spontaneous and go where the wind willed me… bad idea. Luckily, I worked this out before I left and was able to book all of my accommodation in advance. Why was this a bad idea? Well, it may work for some but personally, I’m a planner. I love things to be organised and love to know exactly what is happening at all times. So, if I didn’t have a secured bed every night, I would have been way too stressed to function. But I found a way to compromise. While I did know where I would sleep each night and how I would get to each new place, I left my days free and didn’t book attractions in advance.

Your body is important… obviously. So, you need to work out how to take care of it while travelling and understand it’s limits and preferences. This can look like making sure you’re eating well and drinking enough water, stretching/ exercising each day, or even just sitting in nature and breathing. I discovered fairly quickly that smaller towns closer to nature were more refreshing and that I got burnt out very quickly in the cities. You’re also going to be doing a lot more walking than if you were at home (most likely). I was doing an average of 20-25k steps everyday for the entire 9 weeks that I was away. This meant my water intake was higher and I needed more good foods.

Your budget. While I would have loved to spend money on nice dinners and fun activities, I am a recent university graduate with not a lot to my name. So, I took on the ‘broke backpacker’ lifestyle. This meant cooking my own meals where possible, seeing the outsides of attractions rather than going in, walking everywhere, staying in hostel dorms, and finding free activities wherever I went. While this is a different travel style to the typical holiday, it is still amazing.

So, taking all of these things into consideration you can understand that your travelling won’t look the same as your mothers or your best friends or that travel influencer you love so much. That. Is. Okay. You do you and don’t let anyone stand in the way of you seeing the world.