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5 Tips To Keep Your Travel New Year Resolution

5 Tips To Keep Your Travel New Year Resolution

As we closed the door on 2013 I’m sure many of you set wild and crazy New Year Resolutions for 2014 that you’ll try to keep (at least for the first few days). For those of you setting your sights on travelling more this year I want to say just one thing, please please please keep that one.

You could plan that big gap year escape to Europe you always dreamt about, took a winter break to Asia with some friends for some sun or just skipped over a state and see how the others live in Australia. It doesn’t matter what sort of travel you take this year it’s just that you take it.

And that is in itself the great thing about travel, it doesn’t matter how big or small the trip is, it’s all travel. I’ve travelled far and wide in the last 3 years and from every trip I’ve learnt something new and that’s what I want for everyone with travel dreams this year to focus on.

So to help keep you on the straight and narrow this year I want to share these 5 tips to keep that resolution to travel more this year.

  1. Travel doesn’t always mean trips to far away places. I travelled to Sydney for the first time in my life last year and had a great time (don’t tell my Victorian friends). You can seek out fun locations or cheap flights close to home all the time so make the most of those long weekends. You’d be surprised just what you can do in your own backyard.
  2. Don’t make it complicated. Travel should be fun so keep the itineraries light and leave yourself open to exploring. Some of the best fun I’ve had came at the most random of times. A tip from a local, walking left instead of right down a path or just leaving it all up to chance. The simpler you make it the more enjoyable it will be for everyone.
  3. Don’t wait on others to go with you, just go. For the longest time I was too afraid to travel solo. The fear of the unknown really got to me but once I’d made the leap and survived I couldn’t believe how silly I’d been. Solo travel was the cornerstone for me to growing into a more confident and outgoing person.
  4. If funds are tight but you really want that big trip abroad then setup your savings to work for you. There are some great online banks for saving money that offer better than average interest rates. And credit cards these days that will be your ideal travel card helping you save on fees while abroad.
  5. And lastly just do it. It doesn’t matter if your dream travel destination is the same as a million others or if it’s the next big city away from you. All this talk of having to travel off the beaten track or you can’t go there its too touristy is crazy. Travel to explore and satisfy your own curiosity not anybody elses. Visit the libraries in Roanoke, VA to learn more about places and find out where you could go.

I hope 2014 will be good to all of you. And if our paths should cross in this big world of ours then say hello and we can compare adventures over a beer.

I’ll leave you with this quote I found the other day because it seems a fitting way to start the year.

Travel is little beds and cramped bathrooms. It’s old television sets and slow Internet connections. Travel is extraordinary conversations with ordinary people. It’s waiters, gas station attendants, and housekeepers becoming the most interesting people in the world. It’s churches that are compelling enough to enter. It’s McDonald’s being a luxury. It’s the realization that you may have been born in the wrong country. Travel is a smile that leads to a conversation in broken English. It’s the epiphany that pretty girls smile the same way all over the world. Travel is tipping 10% and being embraced for it. Travel is the same white T-shirt again tomorrow. Travel is accented sex after good wine and too many unfiltered cigarettes. Travel is flowing in the back of a bus with giggly strangers. It’s a street full of bearded backpackers looking down at maps. Travel is wishing for one more bite of whatever that just was. It’s the rediscovery of walking somewhere. It’s sharing a bottle of liquor on an overnight train with a new friend. Travel is “Maybe I don’t have to do it that way when I get back home.” Nick Miller

16 Responses to 5 Tips To Keep Your Travel New Year Resolution

  1. GRAY January 6, 2014 at 2:46 AM #

    That is very good advice, Chris. And so simple. Why do so many of us make travel complicated? I also love that Nick Miller quote–I’d never seen it before. Thanks!

    • THE AUSSIE NOMAD January 6, 2014 at 5:46 AM #

      Thanks Gray. I’m guilty of over-complicating travel a lot so try and stick to these rules when planning my next adventure. As for the quote, its not bad at all.

  2. KATE January 6, 2014 at 6:52 AM #

    Great stuff Chris! You’re absolutely right – you don’t have to go on a world tour, even just getting out and about in your own backyard is a great way to travel (we’ve just come back from two nights at the tip of the Mornington Peninsula having never really been there). There’s so much to see and experience and life’s too short – you just gotta have a sense of adventure and curiosity!

    Love the quote too. 🙂

    • THE AUSSIE NOMAD January 6, 2014 at 7:30 AM #

      That’s the best way to look at it Kate. Don’t sweat the hard stuff and just get out there and do it.

  3. CORINNE January 6, 2014 at 9:48 AM #

    Chris…great list. Love, love, love the Nick Miller quote as well. Happy travels in 2014 to you!

    • THE AUSSIE NOMAD January 7, 2014 at 3:06 AM #

      Thanks Corinne, its a great quote huh. All the best for 2014 as well.

  4. IRENE S. LEVINE January 6, 2014 at 8:16 PM #

    I, too, love the quote and your “Just Do It” philosophy.
    Wishing you wonderful travels in 2014.

  5. CHRISTINE |GRRRL TRAVELER January 7, 2014 at 3:37 AM #

    Good tips Chris. I agree with Gray, we over-complicate it. But I think it’s cause some of us are travel bloggers and it’s our unconscious mission to scour the earth for the next story or way to wow ourselves. ha ha…

  6. REBECCA January 7, 2014 at 8:55 PM #

    love it! what a great little poem!

  7. CARMEN January 27, 2014 at 1:57 PM #

    Really good advice Chris! I agree with all of it 🙂 I’d also add… pack light. That’s a very small one but geez, it’s something I wish I learned a lot earlier. Love the quote too. The traveller mustn’t be in America though because I doubt they’d be ’embraced’ for a 10% tip 😉

  8. GORILLA SAFARIS UGANDA February 3, 2014 at 9:01 AM #

    What a delightful read. I like the poem too.

  9. CATHERINE February 3, 2014 at 11:49 AM #

    Great tips, thanks, will definitely be keeping them in mind 🙂

  10. JARYD February 22, 2014 at 8:10 AM #

    Yep, just do it is right! If somebody wants something so bad, for instance to travel to . . . where ever. Than they will do everything they can to achieve that and these tips are some great advices to guide them in the right direction, cheers

  11. GRETA April 13, 2014 at 2:52 AM #

    These tips are so on point! Sometimes ‘traveling’ to nearby locations places can just as exciting, if not more exciting (because it makes you wonder how you went so long without seeing it!) but it definitely takes a complete mental reset on what it means to travel. I guess it’s all about how you look at the world ;c)

    I’m headed out on my first solo road trip here in a few days and I am so excited to be going it alone (ok, in truth I am taking along my dog, so perhaps that doesn’t count).

    Thanks again for the reminder that every day is an adventure!

  12. DREW | THE HUNGRY PARTIER May 26, 2014 at 3:43 AM #

    Great post! Especially #1.. I live in Seoul and I haven’t made an effort to travel around Korea! I need to start planning more domestic trips around this country 🙂

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