Setting defined, tangible travel goals is an essential part of making travel happen. Among the most mobilizing and motivating of these goals is the departure date, which becomes a concrete deadline for achieving all the other goals you need to meet in order to go on your trip.
Of course, designating a departure date isn’t just necessary for when you first take off: once you’re on the road, setting a date to depart your current destination for the next is essential to maintaining a steady, sustainable pace, particularly on longer trips.
Don’t know how to manifest these strategies in your own life? Read about how I implemented them — and the amazing places doing so took me.
Think Ahead — Way Ahead
One of my primary goals in having moved to China to teach English was being able to save enough money to travel the world extensively after I completed my contract. Indeed, before I even got on the plane across the Pacific, I’d decided I would visit Thailand and Cambodia during my first holiday break, which would be around the time of my birthday the following February (this was in November 2009, for reference) during the Chinese New Year holiday.
As I described in a post last week, saving money in China, while easier than at home in the more-expensive United States, nonetheless required more discipline than I imagined it would. With my daily job tasks becoming more and more tedious as my Chinese New Year trip came and went, the primary means by which I motivated myself to continue working and saving was by setting additional travel goals.
Ideally, I would fulfill my entire contract and depart China in November 2010. After about a month backpacking through Southeast Asia, I’d head down to Australia for a month before flying across the South Pacific. This would place me in South America around the first of the year, just in time to spend the first two months of the year (and, consequently, my next birthday) there.
The world is a huge place — and if you want to make sure you’re able to see a lot of it in your lifetime, put yourself in front of a calendar and start matching destinations to dates. While it’s always possible your circumstances will change and prevent you from meeting the most distant of these goals, setting them in the first place is the only way you can actually achieve them.
Use Deadlines as Guidelines
As you can probably guess if you don’t already know, I quit my job in June 2010, five months before the expiration of my contract. When I handed in my notice, I knew I’d soon be without the residence permit that had allowed me to remain in China legally. In order to buy myself time while I figured out what I wanted to do, I headed to Hong Kong to obtain a tourist visa.
To my dismay, however, I realized that one stipulation of obtaining a Chinese tourist visa outside my home country — in spite of the fact that mine allowed for multiple entries over the course of its six month validity period — was that I needed to leave mainland China once every 30 days. In order to avoid facing fines and harassment by immigration authorities, I booked a ticket to Vietnam that would place me outside China’s borders before the first 30 days had passed.
After I arrived in Vietnam, however, I realized I didn’t particularly want to return to China — and thanks to the savings I accrued from teaching, coupled with my then-new freelance writing gig, I had the financial resources to press on and travel rather than retreat. Once again, I used a deadline — in this instance, my scheduled August 2 return flight from Saigon to Shanghai — as a motivator: if I could devise a suitable itinerary prior to the date of the flight, I would reward myself by missing the flight and going on the trip.
This proved to be as effective the second time as it had been the first: less than a week after arriving in Vietnam, I had devised a three-month, westward bound journey. The first part entailed continuing on through the rest of Vietnam and Laos with my travel companions. Afterwards, I’d stop in the Middle East and Europe before heading back to Austin in mid-October.
Not only did this plan allow me to complete the Southeast Asian portion of the grand trip I dreamed about while trying not to quit my teaching job in China, but it also put me back in Austin with enough time to work, save and make my subsequent goal — taking a two-month trip to South America in January 2011 — happen.
If you find yourself subject to deadlines beyond your control — for example, your apartment lease is expiring and you don’t have the desire to procure another one before it’s up — transform your deadline into a departure date.
Postpone, but Never Cancel
When I received notice in early November 2010 that I’d been selected to participate in the Tourism Authority of Thailand’s “Medical Blog Contest,” I knew I’d be gone from the United States until sometime in December. Financially speaking, traveling to South America around the first of the year became unrealistic.
Although I was initially dismayed by this fact — I wanted to get to and through the continent before the southern hemisphere summer wound down — I nonetheless remembered that my primary goal had always been to spend my birthday there.
Conveniently, my friend Bianca would be coming to visit me for the first three weeks of February, returning to Switzerland February 20, the day after my birthday. After working and saving the entire month of January, I booked an itinerary that arrived in Lima on February 22 and departed from Rio de Janeiro exactly two months later, just as I had always envisioned.
My trip was happening slightly later than I intended, but never losing sight of my goal — and setting a departure date that realistically aligned with my life circumstances — ensured it would still happen regardless.
Wanderer, Pace Thyself
With exactly sixty days to see exactly five countries, I knew that I had roughly 12 days to spend in each — and wiggle room in the event I stayed in one country less than that. I planned to traverse the entire continent by land, so I knew I wouldn’t be bound by any bookings and could be somewhat spontaneous.
Still, I had a relatively rigid itinerary in my mind’s eye. I’d depart Peru for Bolivia around March 4, Bolivia for Chile March 16, Chile for Argentina March 28 and Argentina for Brazil April 9. Although my itineraries within each country were more flexible, I had sequences in mind: in Peru, I’d visit the cities of Lima, Arequipa and Cusco; in Bolivia, La Paz and the Uyuni Salt Flats; in Chile, San Pedro de Atacama and Santiago; in Argentina, Mendoza, Córdoba and Buenos Aires; and in Brazil, after crossing the border with Argentina at Iguazú Falls, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Logically-speaking, I would divide the number of days I spent in each country by the number of destinations I planned to visit to determine the number of days I had in each.
Not surprisingly, some of my plans didn’t align with reality. After falling in love with the city of Cusco (and the magical Loki Hostel there), my time in Peru ended up comprising 14 days. Thankfully, after four days in the Bolivia capital of La Paz, I needed only three more to complete my tour of the Uyuni Salt Flats. As planned, I ended up departing Chile for Argentina March 28 and Argentina for Brazil April 9, which allowed me to coast onto my return flight without feeling like I’d missed anything. Largely, because I hadn’t.
Avoid locking yourself into rigid itineraries whenever possible, but always remain conscious of where you need to be and when you need to be there. Don’t make a reservation if you can avoid it but by all means make a list, if only in your mind.
Robert Schrader is a travel writer and photographer who’s been roaming the world independently since 2005, writing for publications such as “CNNGo” and “Shanghaiist” along the way. His blog, Leave Your Daily Hell, provides a mix of travel advice, destination guides and personal essays covering the more esoteric aspects of life as a traveler.
