It’s easy to assume that making a trip more enjoyable means adding more things to your itinerary. Yet packing your days with activities can leave you with less time to enjoy the experience on your own terms.
Instead of trying to fit more into your trip, focus on spending your time on things you enjoy. After all, time away from everyday responsibilities is limited, whether you’re heading abroad for a week or taking a shorter break closer to home.
Here are three ways to make your next trip more enjoyable by getting more from the time you have.
1. Give yourself something to look forward to
The enjoyment of a trip doesn’t have to start when you arrive. Plan one experience that you’re genuinely excited about so you have a specific highlight to look forward to before you leave.
The German word vorfreude describes the pleasure we get when anticipating a positive experience. That anticipatory joy means looking forward to part of your trip can become enjoyable in its own right.
For example, you could reserve a table at a restaurant you’ve particularly wanted to visit. Instead of having only the trip itself on the horizon, you now have a specific experience to anticipate as your departure gets closer. A well-chosen highlight can give you something enjoyable to think about in the weeks before your trip.
2. Plan around how you like to travel
Once you start thinking about what you’ll do while you’re away, prioritise the experiences you personally enjoy rather than automatically following a list of ‘must-see’ attractions.
An itinerary that reflects your interests means you can spend more of your limited leisure time doing things you actually enjoy. After all, visiting an attraction simply because a guidebook recommends it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll enjoy your day more.
If food is one of your main reasons for travelling, for instance, you might prefer spending your time exploring local food spots rather than working through a generic ‘best things to see in x city’ checklist.
Someone else might make completely different choices, and that’s the point: your itinerary should reflect what you value. So, judge the success of your trip by how much you enjoyed your time away, not by how many recommended attractions you managed to complete.
3. Turn waiting time into ‘me’ time
Of course, not every part of a trip goes according to your itinerary. Travel often involves periods of unavoidable waiting, but you can treat some of that time as personal downtime rather than simply something to get through.
Instead of treating necessary waiting as lost holiday time, use it to do something you enjoy. That way, you spend less of the journey watching the clock and more of it occupied by
something you've chosen to do.
During an airport wait, for example, you could listen to an audiobook or play slot games online for quick entertainment. The specific choice is less important than using that otherwise empty period for a little entertainment of your own.
Making unavoidable waiting more enjoyable means the journey can feel like part of your break rather than an obstacle standing between you and it.
Wrapping up…
How you use your time away matters more than simply having time away. Before your next trip, consider what you would genuinely enjoy doing with that time. Making that decision before you travel can help you spend more of your limited leisure time doing things you actually value.
What could you do differently on your next trip?
*contributed post*
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