A Few Benefits of Traveling Without High Expectations
Of all the different things that people do in order to experience a sense of wonder, adventure, and excitement, travel is one of the most popular.
For many of us, our annual family vacations are the moments we look forward to and plan for all year long. It’s often family vacations that allow parents and children to most effectively bond and forge great shared memories that will stand the test of time. The time away together can be invaluable. It can be easy to get caught up in the excitement of the trip and unknowingly set high expectations that could become a block for really enjoying your time away with those you love.
Whether you are excited about planning your next weekend getaway or are looking up resources for moving items internationally in preparation for a bold relocation, the different ways in which you might approach your travels are bound to have an impact on your overall experience.
For our family, I’ve noticed that when expectations are really high for a vacation, tension can be high and some of the fun while traveling can be lost. When I want everyone to get along the entire time, have everything go just as planned, never get lost, and eat only amazing food, that is setting myself up for disappointment. When I still have high expectations about the trip going well but let go of control of all of the details, things will end up better for everyone.
Here are a handful of reasons why it might be a really good idea to do your traveling with as few expectations as possible that we have learned from our family travels.
Avoid Setting Grand Expectations
Perhaps the most detrimental consequence of beginning your travels with a set of grand expectations, is that you will be in a situation where you are constantly comparing the reality of your experience with your own thoughts about how the trip should play out.
For example, we went on a trip to Orlando last week for spring break and I had the vision that we would have booked dinner reservations for every night while visiting Walt Disney World. When there were not any reservation slots open, we were greeted with disappointment. Once I switched my mindset to go with the flow, dinner still worked out and actually exceeded my original expectations. We ended up getting a last-minute reservation to eat inside of Cinderella’s Castle due to someone else making a cancelation. Our waitress told us that we were super, super, super, super lucky. Wow!
Dining in Cinderella’s Castle in Walt Disney World
I’m not saying to not dream big. Of course, it’s important to have big plans and try to make them happen. Just take a breath and a step back when things start to feel disappointing and consider if shifting your midset could be helpful.
Be Present
Among other things, this means that you will likely miss a lot of things that are present in the experience itself, as you will be constantly caught up in your own thoughts about the experience, and what it “should” be.
For another thing, you may well end up feeling disappointed if the location doesn’t match your expectations – even if the experience could be truly amazing, just in a different way, if you approached it in a more open manner.
Going with the flow can be a great way to approach a vacation as things do seem to always work out. This allows us to enjoy what is going on right in front of us and not focus on what could or should be happening.
Relax More and Find Balance
In day-to-day life, most of us spend a significant amount of time and energy getting caught up in planning, anticipating and trying to account for the future, handling different duties and obligations.
One of the great things about travel is that it can offer the potential to enter the present moment more fully and to let a lot of that other stuff fade out for the time being. Travel can, in other words, help you to relax more and find balance. But this is only true to the full extent when you are willing and able to minimize your expectations and to relax into the experience.
As a planner, it can be a challenge at times to relax and not be thinking about the next places to be or reservations to set. But I have found that when I allow myself to slow down, that is where the vacation magic happens. This gives space for meaningful conversations with my family and lets us relax and unwind together.
New Perspectives
Your expectations can powerfully shape what you perceive in your environment, and how you interpret the situations that unfold before you.
One effect of this is that you will tend to filter out a lot of the stuff that surrounds you, that doesn’t match your expectations – either for good or for bad.
Embarking on your travels with as few expectations can help to reveal things to you about your travel destination, and other aspects of life as a whole, that you might have missed out on otherwise.
I’m reminded of a trip to Spain that we took several years ago. We were going with friends and had not been involved in much of the planning. Honestly, at that point, Spain hadn’t even been on my bucket list. (It’s now on my list to return and I want to explore it even more!) We didn’t have many expectations and really didn’t know what to expect when visiting Spain. Well, our experience was fantastic and we loved everything we saw, explored and ate. Since we went into the trip without having high hopes, we were able to be surprised and delighted by many things every day.
It’s these kinds of insights and experiences that can end up contributing to a lot of the magic of travel.
When we can allow ourselves to stop hyper-planning and let some serendipity work its magic in our path, I think that our trips will become more meaningful, interesting, and memorable.