The glamour of travel (or not)

I have seen spectrum on which people reside where travel is concerned. At one end, you’ve got anxiety, trepidation, and nausea. At the other, giddyness, excitement, and potentially nausea. (So maybe it’s a continuum?)

Anyway, I land firmly on the giddy, excitement, “oooooh let’s go!” point.  I love the potential. I love sitting in the airport watching people. I love listening to the announcements, hearing who eeds to get to their gate, and watching plane arrive and take off.  For the most part, all I see is love.

Today I get to be in the international terminal as I head out to a conference in Canada. So the people in this terminal are extra happy, love-y, and smiley.  Announcments are in Spanish, Korean, Japanese, Brazilian, and English.  There is amazing art and a display of Italian Motorcycles from the 50s and 60s.

Yes, I was born with wanderlust in my blood. I love coming home as much as I like leaving again. For a while, I traveled the world and got paid to do it. I’m starting that trend again at the perfect pace for me where I am now in my life.

Being a hugely creative, visionary, ooh-shiny thinker, here’s how I keep my zen like state for travel (and I mean travel anywhere – car, train, plane).

I have a packing list.

I add an extra hour earlier onto my ‘drop dead gotta leave the house’ time.

Yeah, I know. It’s that simple.

Listen, I can hear you, wait, I can feel you, railing against using a list for travel. “Don’t fence me in!”  or “you can’t make me!”  I was like that once. And the bullshit stress of being late, forgetting stuff, having to spend money I didn’t need to if I’d just remembered, finally got to me. I got tired of being in the security line worrying, judging all the ‘slow’ people who don’t already know they have to take off their shoes. Ugh. Way not cool. That stress is totally avoidable.

I picked up a template from the Microsoft Office template site, searched “travel”, picked one, and customized it to my needs.  Why should I recreate the wheel when I could just put shiny hubcaps on one?

Now, it takes me about 45 minutes to pack, I bring everythign I need and want, get to the airport on time, and observe the crazy “freak-outs” without getting sucked into them.  By the power of magical internet and laptops (yes, it’s magic, don’t kid yourself) I get to work in a calm way for an hour, catch up on reading, and hey, even write a blog post or two.

So do yourself a favor. Go make yourself a list. Whether you’re a seasoned traveler or just occasionally go to the aiport, grab a template and customize it. Have your Assistant customize it for you. Whatever.  And if you want to see mine, book a 30 Minute Sesh with me and I’ll email it to you.

Have a magnificent day!

Jessica