“Planning” To Go With The Flow When Traveling

TTT 9
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Jenn: hey, everyone. Welcome back to travel. Tip Tuesday. There we go.

Meggan: TTT

Jenn: This, this week, I want to talk about something that I'm not very good at which is clinic

Meggan: self introspection.

Jenn: If anything, this podcast is me, it's introspection into my traveling habits.

I know we joke about how I'm like, go, go, go and plan too many things. But it's really true. And it has affected how much we've enjoyed trips in the past, like our honeymoon. So we are planning trip to Scotland for June, and now I'm planning for downtime, which I see the irony in planning too much.

Meggan: I mean, funniest statement I've ever heard planning for not planning activities. Anyway, do your you're in the middle of your journey and it's okay. So let's work through this.

Jenn: Yeah, I kind of want to plan something like the days where we don't have too much planned and we can kind of like go with the flow. That being said, I, I get like anxiety about.

Meggan: I get it

Jenn: wasting time wasting the time that I have in this place that I may or may not get back to, especially. So I've come up with some things that I can do in the place that I am that still kind of enjoying it, but also not going crazy.

Meggan: Right, right. Understood.

Jenn: The first thing I came up with read a book maybe about the place you're visiting when we were in London last or we, yeah, I was in London on our honeymoon. I was reading Harry Potter, which was, you know, kind of like, I wasn't learning what the place was, but it was just the

Meggan: British theme

Jenn: I was in the right setting. I bought the first Outlander book. And I've never read Outlander or watched it. So I bought that and I'm planning to start it before we go, but it is in giant books. So I'm sure I won't finish it before we go

Meggan: they are all giant books.

Jenn: Yes they are. So, yeah, I'll have that to kind of like immerse me in Scotland, but kind of relaxing the same time.

Visiting a local coffee shop or local pub. For a drink, hang out. Maybe Ryan will nap nap in the booth. I love

Meggan: her. I'd love to redo that.

Jenn: One of the things we really liked when we were in London was watching local TV shows. So we discovered Would I lie to you and we love that show and we still watch it on YouTube to this day.

So that now it's kind of like a fun callback to our honeymoon and we watch it. And then the other thing I thought of was like, do whatever is self-care to you at home. So like taking a bath, taking a nap, like doing a face mask. That was sort of thing. So just of

Meggan: combine like TV shows, face masks, I mean, you can combine those two, so you got a good list there.

Jenn: Yeah, so I definitely want to just make sure that I give like my body and my mind a break from like running to attractions.

That's when you're also how do you do downtime? Do you plan for.

Meggan: We both - I don't, but we both know that like, I'm still a bit in recovery from this. So like, I poke fun, but I know, and I still get anxious sometimes if like, I thought we were doing this, like, it has been a, it's a process.

But we don't really plan for it. So. We know what we want to see for attractions, a general idea of the day and like what our driving time will involve. And then the rest of it, we kind of just see what happens. That's a really Peter influenced thing. Like just seeing what happens, like things that we do is we go for a walk, like without an agenda.

So we do this a lot in the evening. Sometimes we're just sight-seeing around, like what's near our hotels. We browse in stores and the town like you said, find ourselves in a local pub or a coffee shop yet not having set out to do it, if it makes sense. I mean really our most awesome, most authentic experience Ireland happened to be, we literally stumbled across this pub in Donegal blue stack pub and I did not want to go in and Peter's like, we so need to go in here.

And it was just like this old dude running this old Irish pub. And it was like the best experience. A, I wouldn't have gone in but B we didn't plan to and then sometimes we do just chill out in our accommodation. Sometimes you just need to rest. If you've gone all day long, you're just tired and that's okay.

Because the vacation should be about rest as well. And yeah, so we don't plan for downtime specifically. We honestly just take whatever comes based on what we see, where we're at. Sometimes we do nothing. Sometimes we do something like, it really does depend. And I mean, like I said before, I have had some bouts of this in the past and it is a process and it's hard to let go of what you always do.

So I think you should just be kind with yourself as well. And like when you feel the anxiety, like just work through it or just go for a walk, honestly, that will help right away because. You might not have anything to do, but you'll be out doing something if that makes sense.

Jenn: Yeah. I think that definitely makes sense that you're not just, I, yeah, it's the sitting in the hotel or whatever, like being like, well, I feel like I should be out there. Like, I feel like I shouldn't be doing thing instead of sitting in my accommodations, but also like you paid for these accommodations and you should also enjoy

Meggan: that. It's a quandary. I'm not gonna lie. I can't wait to hear, we're going to have to have like travel tip Tuesday, Jen and Scotland when you're back and

Jenn: let you know how it goes.

Meggan: Yes. I'm very much looking forward to it.

Jenn: All right. That is our travel tip Tuesday sort of a tip sort of not but here we are

Meggan: a little therapy. It's all good.

Jenn: Thank you so much for listening to the travel mug podcast, you can find us on our website, travel mug, podcast.com. On Facebook and Instagram at the travel mug podcast.

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Meggan: I mean, who doesn't want to see more of that? Um, Good moves,

Jenn: please consider leaving us a review on apple podcasts or Spotify and share the show with a travel loving pal.

And we'll talk to you next week.