Sometimes our best laid-out travel plans change. It’s inevitable. No matter how many hours we spend cultivating the perfect travel itinerary, no matter how many times we’ve gotten confirmations, we can’t control everything that happens.
Plans can change due to a travel companion dropping out at the last minute. Weather being unpredictable. Yet another airline shutting down and leaving thousands of passengers stranded.
Prior to my road trip to Canada and Montana, I woke up to news that Glacier National Park received enough snow to close down a part of the Going to the Sun Road, throwing a major wrench into my travel plans.
While I was en-route to a destination wedding in 2016, my airline was delayed, causing me to miss my connection and left me stranded overnight in Puerto Rico.
An amazing dirty-30 international birthday trip with friends crumbled after planning for weeks, culminating into a major life-learning adjustment.
I’m sure some of you have experienced a similar situation where you’ve had your travel plans change. It happens. We can’t control the weather, businesses, or other people’s actions.
But what we can control is our response and reaction to these types of instances.
Something I try to stress on this website is that adventure is all about attitude. Sure, plans can change, but that doesn’t mean that adventure has to be put on hold.
If anything, having your travel plans change can be the freedom you needed to head into a new direction.
So what happens when your travel plans change? What do you do? What should you do?
Take a deep breath
The normal reaction that most people have when facing the unexpected is to freak out and enter panic-mode. Not only is this counterproductive, but can destroy whatever hope of immediate travel plans you might have had.
When you hear that your travel plans change, you’ll feel like a bucket of cold water was dumped down your neck, spreading coldness over your entire body like stepping into a walk-in freezer.
Take a deep breath.
Breathe.
The world is decidedly NOT coming to an end.
Remember – adventure is all about attitude. Once you accept the fact that your travel plans have indeed changed, you can go into problem-solving mode.
Stop and think
After you calmed yourself down by doing some breathing exercises, you can start to process what just happened. Instead of rushing into action immediately without a clear head, which can wear down your mind, dampen your spirits considerably, and can easily lead to frustration and poor decision-making skills, take a moment to organize your thoughts.
Sit down and stare at the wall.
Drink some water.
Eat something.
Making decisions when you’re emotional (whether the emotion is positive or negative) is never a good idea.
Time to adapt and adjust
Now that your travel plans have changed, whether because someone dropped out and you’re now going solo, or because bad weather is forcing you to choose a new destination, now is the time to do some soul-searching.
If your travel companion decided to bail out last-minute, maybe it’s time you gave solo travel a shot.
If bad weather is keeping you grounded, maybe this is the time to go on a long-overdue road trip.
If your entire trip has crumbled, remember that there is value in a staycation. And there are so many benefits to a weekend getaway.
Just because a road block presents itself doesn’t mean that you need to cancel your adventure.
Make adjustments (if any) and keep pushing forward. After your adventure, think about what you have learned. It’s amazing to think that sometimes we have to experience a major setback in order to move forward in the best direction for us.
Go!
Now that you’ve refrained from panicking, took some deep breaths and reevaluated and adjusted your plans, it’s time to go!
Once you’ve moved on from the changes to your plans and are actually on your trip/adventure, don’t dwell too long about the things that caused all the upheaval. Enjoy your trip!
Have you ever had your travel plans change unexpectedly? How did you react? What did you do?
Sharing is caring! Please show some love by sharing on Pinterest, Facebook or Instagram! Thank you!
PIN ME
