10 Things to Know Before Leaving for a Trip: It is the first time that you leave alone, none of your friends has ever done it, everyone makes you “ahead of a lot” between doubts, worries and psychological terrorism, you are convinced, you want to leave, but at the same time you are nervous, Don’t worry; it happened to everyone! These are my recommendations.
10 Things to Know Before Leaving for a Trip:
01 Being afraid the day before leaving is normal:
Fear is a healthy, natural emotion; it serves to put a man in a greater alert condition and be more sensitive and reactive. If we do not know something, we can be afraid because quiet has happened to everyone because there could be a danger.
As a wiser man said to me: heroes are afraid too, but they go on despite the fear. And we must be heroes of our life, to make sure that fear keeps us on the alert, but that does not paralyze us.
So, yes, the day before leaving, you will not sleep much, you will have a dry mouth, a bite in the stomach, but do not worry once the door is closed behind you everything will be gone.
02 You don’t have to expect approval from everyone:
Usually, who has done something before you give you an opinion, who has never done it tries to cut your legs, metaphorically means. If your friends or family have never travelled alone or just far from this concept, let’s say more “adventurous,” they will fill your head with “what are you going to do,” “but don’t you have a friend?” “Be careful it’s dangerous,” and I could go on for several lines.
You can listen, smile, and go your own way, you don’t need their approval, how could they understand what’s beautiful in something that they have always refused to do in life? Try to ask advice or opinions to those who have already traveled solo and just inform the rest.
03 You need fewer things than you think:
The size of your suitcase does not depend on the number of days you will be out, at most on the country’s climate. On the road, you always need very little, on the road alone even less, and do you know why? Because you will hardly see people seen a couple of days before, so also if you reuse an outfit, nobody will notice.
In every part of the world, there are laundries and certainly in all the hostels. I recommend that you bring your gear for about a week and then wash it! The lighter you travel and the less worries you have, because you will have fewer things to take care of and be more agile and quick to move.
04 Traveling alone you know many more people than in the company:
Many are afraid of loneliness or boredom, apart from the fact that if you get bored alone, it means that even at home you must necessarily be in a group of people and this should put you in front of some questions of life.
But going back to the trip, even if none of your friends have ever traveled alone, there are many lonely travelers in the world. Surely it is easier to meet them on long trips, such as South America or South East Asia, but also in Europe, if we wander between hostels and cafes, we will have no difficulty. When you travel alone, you recognize yourself, you become more open, more inclined to observe.
Although it may seem strange, we talk to travellers, share ideas, itineraries, tips, and even beers, even if we have never met before. I’ve shared trips for weeks with people I met at the seat next to mine on the bus.
05 You will discover for the first time in your life what freedom is:
We think we know we know what it means to do what you want, a bit like a Sunday morning, but it’s not like that. At home, we always have the context that belongs to us, which reminds us of behavior created by society and our social humus. Traveling no, nobody knows who we are, nobody knows where we come from, nobody expects anything and not even you, you are inclined to try, to get carried away to go beyond what you already knew about yourself.
I am not referring to crazy things, such as drugs, parties, or extreme sports. Still, too small discoveries, such as being surprised while eating a new fruit, deciding that you do not want to visit a city one day, but sit in a park, find yourself changing your itinerary for the last-minute advice.
06 What you think of yourself may change:
Sometimes we grow up with an idea of ourselves not based on the truth, but on what our parents or people close to us have projected on us. “You’re weak,” “you can’t do it,” “you’re shy,” maybe they told us at 5 years of age, and then we never asked ourselves if at 30 this thing still had value, we took it for granted. When you are alone in the world, you are not what others have told you to be, the real part of you comes out. You may find yourself braver, more independent, stronger, or even more attached to your habits than you thought, but this is the beauty of covering yourself based on direct experience.
07 It will make you learn languages faster than any app:
Communicating is living, and on the road we would like to be suddenly multilingual, to speak all the languages of the world and to be able to chat with every person, driver, restaurateur or baker boy, yet it still seems difficult. All those who say that you can travel without speaking any language lie or have a truly solitary lifestyle. Traveling languages open doors, smiles, save us from situations, the more you talk about them, the better.
As a rough and somewhat reductive vision, I would say that at least English should be spoken if you travel in Europe and South East Asia, Spanish if you travel to South America and French and English if you go to Africa. When we are at home, our progress is plodding.
Even if we dedicate two afternoons a week to studying a language, we are always ashamed, afraid of making mistakes, traveling alone, we have no alternative. If we cannot order food we don’t eat, if we don’t know how to ask for information, we risk losing the train! You will learn very quickly to communicate, and you will learn many new words and sayings.
08 You will learn that people in the world are good:
“Be careful” “there is evil out there,” that’s not exactly. We have this unhealthy idea that the world outside our home is terrible and intent on taking advantage of us. I’ll tell you one thing: it’s not true! The dangers are always and everywhere, of course maybe a bus in Rio de Janeiro is more dangerous than one in Zurich, but most people are good. In the world, if you need help, most people will help you instead of robbing you.
If you lose something, they will almost certainly give it back! Once I left my reflex on the bus that allows you to cross the border between Bolivia and Peru, as soon as I realized I went back, they accompanied me to the house of the driver who was having lunch, and he met me with my car in hand. I also lost many objects in Mexico, Vietnam, and people who have always helped me. We could learn to trust each other more, even if now and then there is a rotten apple, but that is also there.
09 You will begin to appreciate silence:
For us, born in this era, silence equals emptiness, and emptiness equals embarrassment. We always tend to fill the wishes and no longer have stupid things to say we take our cell phone in hand. Being alone to do nothing for us is unlucky, luckily for other cultures not. On the road, times get longer, conversations decrease, there are less usual stimuli, and we have more possibilities to remain silent, think, and listen to us to look well, slowly, calmly. We have more time for breaks, and we can learn a lot from tears, silence opens our eyes.
10 It could become an addiction:
The problem is that after you have done it for a while and you liked it, you discover that it is an excellent way to live a place, that you no longer wish to negotiate every decision that sometimes it is pleasant to do what you want without programming it even before leaving. In many cases, you may find that you prefer to travel like this for a period of your life, free and independent.
Those are my recommendations for Things to Know Before Leaving for a Trip.
5 Enchanting cities of southern Italy: historical-artistic heritage and more…