When scuba diving, it’s important to return to the surface of the water slowly, so that your body has time to adapt to the decreasing pressure. If you surface too quickly, a condition known as ‘the bends’ can take root, in which you will feel tremendously nauseous, joint pain or even paralysis, and may require additional medical treatment.
Yet ‘the bends’ is also something of a comparable feeling we can get when diving into an activity that we shouldn’t have approached too soon. After a year of lockdown and postponing major travel plans around the world, diving into a multi-country international trip can give you this feeling too, even if you’re a storied traveler with plenty of experience under your belt.
So, how can you avoid this feeling when returning to your travel plans, and instead enjoy the experience through and through instead? In this post, we hope to discuss that, as well as a couple of alternative travel ideas that can help you get used to this wonderful flow of life once more. With that in mind, let’s get started:
Go For A Small, Intimate Trip First
It’s healthy to go for a small, intimate trip, and to spent time enjoying the people you’re visiting a location with rather than trying to achieve everything at once. For instance, you might decide to go on a mini food tour around your area, traveling a little further afield, but in no way overbearingly far.
Simply getting used to spending time in hotels, or in bed and breakfasts, or spending a nice weekend away in an AirBnB to make use of the local beach more conveniently can be a lovely idea. It not only helps you plan the logistical necessities of travel more readily, but can help you enjoy yourself with almost zero pressure or need for extensive contingencies if your plans have to change.
To that degree, this is a lovely method of enjoying yourself first and foremost, which should often be the main priority of any vacation.
Visit Your Family If They’re Available
Eighteen months away from normality and being unable to see our families will put something of a dampener on how connected we feel to those we love. This is why it can be a lovely idea to visit our family if they’re available, perhaps on a road trip where you visit a couple of their house, or maybe in a joint trip where you can come together and have a great deal of fun. Little efforts like this can help you meet again and redefine your normality instead of feeling as though you’re totally disconnected from those you love. Even if you just attend for some evening tea in each home, it can make a massive difference compared to the prolonged phone calls you’ve had to substitute with until now.
Make Sure You’re Prepared For The Summer
Of course, a year outside of the intensity of the sun can also make us forget just how much we need to prepare for that hot weather. Investing in the best hay fever treatments can help you avoid the worst symptoms this year, managing your approach ahead of time instead.
It’s also true that preparing your vehicle for road trips can be a great idea, including purchasing a top box for luggage so your family has more room to move around, curating a great inventory of medication for those in your family who might need it, as well as simple utilities like finding a correct SPF sun block suite just so you can protect yourself from the sun as necessary.
Making sure you’re prepared for summer may simply mean booking your reserve slots early, too, so that you don’t have to try and get a cleared spot when another tourist drops out, and also so that you don’t have to go without your first possible choice when opting for accommodation or booking tickets. Having all of your logistics planned out will almost always be tremendously helpful.
Go With The Flow
Ultimately, a vacation where you get to decide most of the considerations going forward can help you take it at your own pace. So, perhaps instead of going for the all-inclusive resort deal, you might decide to invest in a rented RV or simply enjoy camping for a weekend. Little efforts like this can ultimately remain the most fun, because you decide almost every element of your experience.
With this advice, we hope you can more readily avoid ‘the bends’ when returning back to your travel plans.
