How to Achieve Travel Goals (Blog)
 

Use this thread to discuss the following entry from Steve Pavlina's blog:

How to Achieve Travel Goals

Thanks for the reminder.
 

This was a timely article for me. It is not so much because of travel itself, which I have been doing more of since 2010, but it was a reminder that I need to live life by my own terms in other areas of my life. I have been getting many reminders in the past few days from many sources to do so.

For my travel goals in the next year, I plan to visit Las Vegas twice for Steve's upcoming workshops. I desire to visit Zion Canyon during one of those trips. I also want to visit San Diego. I have been wanting to go to San Diego for a while, and I will do it by February. I have been to 10 US states this year. Right now, I get more excited about US travel, as I want to visit all 50 states.

I have been out of the US once on a trip to Moscow, Russia, and it was an interesting experience. It was not an easy place to visit, and I had a lot of headaches with sending a package to Russia for my trip. The package never made it to Russia, but I still went anyway, even though the contents of the package was important to my purpose of being there. I had many sleepless nights over all of the stuff that needed to be taken care of to make the trip possible. I barely know any Russian, so I had to rely on those who both knew English and Russian. Once I got there, I felt very calm, even though Moscow is far from paradise. Its grit is part of its charm.

With my current situation, I have been finding myself having many sleepless nights fussing over it. Thank you Steve for helping me inch closer to my goal.

My preferred travel style does not involve counting travel time in weeks, but in months or years. Your paragraph on "Integrating the Travel Vibe Into Your Lifestyle" rang very true to me. Making long term travel a long term comitment does require keeping this idea central to most decisions in your life: choice of studies, of line of work, of spouse, of socialisation habits. It requires more creativity (visa, employment and citizenship issues are not always as easily solved as finding a babysitter) but this adds to the level of commitment you need... and to how rewardingt the experience becomes.

Your last paragraph made me laugh - to me the dichotomy makes no sense. I am both a traveler and a homebody! I actually dislike being away from my partner, my dog, my garden and my kitchen for more than a couple of days. But over the last 6 years, "home" has been 7 different places on 3 different continents.

It can be very difficult to fit everything in with travel.

But sometimes you've just got to make it happen.

I did a lot of travelling before returning about 3 years ago, and have barely left my city since, but I've needed to work on my career, and long-term plans, like buying an apartment, etc.

I pretty much spent all my money on travel and then came home, and coming home meant living at my parents house, which I didn't like much, so I had to get a career plan established, as well as a studio + place to live.

I'm almost ready to travel again too! this year and next it seems, but waiting for work to get back to me on time I can get off.

When I was 13, my dream was to travel to Japan as I was fascinated with the country, the people, the culture, food etc as well as being a huge anime and manga fan in which I was always drawing anime or manga characters every single day and I always visualised myself being in Japan exploring and always believed in myself that one day I would go there on my own which would be very exciting.

When I left home to join the Army to try and overcome my Social Anxiety Disorder which was severe before I left home, I still had the passion, excitement and belief that I would one day go to Japan on my own. The money I was earning I constantly saved until I had enough to afford to go and by luck I had a three week holiday at Christmas/New Year I which I then felt it was the best time to go. Also by luck, I managed to get a cheap return flight and decent accommodation at a affordable price in which I was then ready to go.

This was the first ever that I travelled alone and being a Social Anxiety Disorder sufferer, it felt very scary at first but very exciting at the same time. When I went, I was very nervous to appoach the Japanese people to get directions and to speak their language as my japanese language was very limited. But I was amazed as to how kind, helpful and welcoming japanese people are in which I felt more safe and alot more confident within myself and towards other people as each each day went by during my holiday in Japan. Japan is one of the safest countries in the world.

I believe that my self-belief and positive vision of going to Japan on my own may have helped by the Law Of Attraction which resulted in me joining the Army to earn a secure wage and given the time off at Christmas/New Year which is a special time to go on holiday as well being to find a bargain in the flight and decent accommodation to have the holiday. It was the best travelling holiday I ever had and really made me feel alot more confident within myself and towards other people as well as helping me to my overcome my Social Anxiety Disorder.

When you're going to London, Steve? :)