A Gust Of Wind Is All It Takes

Be it an escape from your routine, or a way to relax your mind and body, travel is an essential part of one’s life. And contrary to the popular belief, global travel can be very affordable too.

For most people, making that first step needs a little bit of courage and wit, and after that a gust of wind is all it takes.

So, below are a few tips to give you that initial courage to take that first step:

Be a part of a showcase at a conference or propose to speak there. This automatically brings in a lot of motivation to make the trip by giving it a sense of purpose. Also, good conferences will be willing to cover some, if not all of your travel and accommodation expenses. For me, game developer conferences like Casual Connect have been a boon.

For an increased dose of wanderlust and pumping up your excitement, plan your itinerary using a multi-city trip planner on your travel website. Traveling to Amsterdam? Fly back from Paris. Going to the other corner of the globe? Stop by and extend your layover in your transit destination and explore. It costs nothing to extend your layover!

Booking in advance (about 3 months) gives you the benefit of getting prices that could possibly be half of what they’d be when you book a week in advance. Also, weekend flights often have a price surge, so fly weekdays to avoid that.

Do some research about the place you’re visiting, the sights to see and what to experience. Of course, when you actually visit the place, things may go haphazard and not go anyway you planned, but you still have your options open and you know them.

If you’re traveling alone, staying at a guesthouse or at someone’s place using AirBnB lets you take advantage of the hospitality of your hosts. Depending on the host, you may get to experience the life in the destination place like a local, see places other than the usual touristy stuff. You could also couchsurf if you wish, but that requires you to host tourists at your home base as well. (Its works two ways.)

For someone like me, this raises my levels of anxiety to another bar altogether. It might be tough to start out or even know where to start. But, I’ve found meetup.com to be a good source to find interesting groups of people to meet with and share some local experiences. Just browse meetup.com meet-ups for the city you’re going to on the dates you’re visiting and join the ones you find interesting. As ever, taking the first step is hard, and meetup.com makes it easy. Just RSVP to a meetup and show up at the place, and the when you’re there, the wind will take you.

In this busy life, it might be hard to find someone close you’d want to travel with you and match their schedules with yours. For the first few trips travel solo and make friends with the locals. When you travel there the next time, you kind of have a home base away from home. Who knows someone local might be interesting in globetrotting with you. Couchsurfing, Lonely Planet and Meetup.com international travel communities are a good place to find people. This part is hard, and I know its easier said than done, but like everything else, it comes with experience.

Finally, each travel brings you back home with new memories and experiences, and motivation to do something new and exciting work-wise, which is all I need to consider travel a worthwhile investment.