One of the first things my husband accepted about me were my weird travel habits. I’m a strange, anxiety-filled duck when it comes to most things, but I get even weirder when it comes to travel. I honestly don’t know why I’m still like this after travelling every month for the past two years. Yet here we are.
I always bring a pillow. Like a full sized one. From our bed. Regardless of how limited we are on space, I somehow always manage to jam my pillow into the suitcase to bring along with me despite Alex’s eye rolling.
I always have to have peanut butter M&Ms. I rarely eat them any other time, but when I’m travelling it’s a must. Anyone else have a weird travel-only snack you just have to have?
Now this one has to be the planner girl in me, but I always pack early. We’re talking a week early on average. I like to pick out the clothes I want to bring with me early so I don’t wear them before we leave. Plus I’m constantly paranoid I’m going to forget something (like a hairbrush I’m constantly forgetting) so in my head packing early means I have more time to think about what I need. Without fail, no matter how often we travel, I still pack like I haven’t traveled in years.
Now so far these aren’t too crazy, but I also always use Google maps to check what food will be around me. I’m weirdly paranoid that despite living in the 21st century and really only travelling domestically, I won’t be able to find food. Like come on Kayla, there’s a Starbucks around every corner. You’re good. And yet about a week before we leave for a trip I find myself frantically googling food within walking distance of our hotel. Just in case I find myself starving to death.
Regardless of knowing where all the closest food sources are to the hotel, I still bring enough snacks to feed four people for a week. Without fail. Now that TSA requires you to take out snacks I look like I’m emptying a grocery cart every time I go to a security checkpoint. Apparently my fear of hunger knows no bounds.
What are some of your weird travel quirks? Make me feel less insane!
We talked about travel anxiety in a recent post, but I wanted to dive into the tricks I’ve learned along the way that has made travel a breeze. I travel about once a month and these tips make it possible.
Join every frequent flyer program you can find. No matter what airline I’m flying on, I make sure I’m part of their program to get points for the flights. That way, one day down the road I’ll have enough points for free travel. It seems silly if you don’t use the same airline that often, but over time it can really pay off. Plus the programs are free so what does it hurt?
Along the same lines of frequent flyers are credit card points. Depending on what card you have, you’ll receive points from purchases. We run our entire business through our credit cards in order to get the most points possible. We use those to pay for flights and hotels for conferences and events. As long as you pay off your credit card balance in full every month, it’s basically like the credit card company is paying for your travel.
Once you’re actually traveling, pack Ziplock bags with you. I usually bring one gallon bag with a few sandwich bags inside. You never know when you’ll need a ziplock bag. It’s great to keep your liquids separate from other things in your bag if they happen to spill. Maybe you went swimming the night before your flight leaves and still have a wet swimsuit. They’re great to have on hand, just in case.
I’ve personally never been very good at documenting a trip while I’m on it, so I recommend keeping daily adventure lists of what you get up to. Nothing too fancy, just a list of places you went, things you saw, and food you ate. That way when you get back home you won’t have to remember all the details when you’re trying to document the trip.
Although I’m a bit biased with this one, film it. Film the entire trip in one capacity or another. Even if it’s just short clips on your phone, you’ll love being able to look back and see better snippets than just posed photos. Phone storage is way better these days so you won’t have to worry about using up your space.
Any other seasoned travelers out there? What are your top tips?
Oh travel anxiety. I swear no matter how often I travel I still get anxious before flights. What’s that about brain?! While I try to figure out a way to trick my brain out of anxiety, here are some things I do that could help you reduce travel apprehension.
Do your research. A lot of my anxiety stems from a lack of control. I like having information, the more the better. So I always do my research about what’s around the hotel I’m staying at so I know options for food and shopping if I happen to need something. I look into weather forecasts and the distance from the airport to the hotel. I print off schedules if I’m going to a conference. The more information I can find the more at ease I am.
Have a packing list that you can continually update after every travel adventure. For the longest time I kept forgetting my hairbrush. Nothing annoys a planner more than when things don’t go according to plan. So now I stick firmly to a packing list on my laptop that I’ll print out and use for every trip.
Set a loose schedule of what you want to do at the destination. The key word is loose. I tend to have a problem of over planning which leads to expectations being crushed when we don’t get to everything on my impossibly long schedule. I like to choose two to three main things I want to do every day and leave room for a little planned spontaneous (see what I did there) adventures in between.
Prepare where you can and try to let go of worrying about what you can’t. This is a discussion Alex and I have constantly. I can’t control if our plane is delayed or not, but I can control whether or not I have things to do if it is. Have things in place just in case some of those silly anxieties actually come true, but don’t stress about things you can’t control.
Now plan that next adventure and face that travel anxiety head on. Don’t miss out on amazing memories.
Although 2018 felt packed with travel and conferences, 2019 is already shaping up to blow last year away. Before my trip to Las Vegas for Go Wild a few weeks ago, I hadn’t traveled alone in years. The itch to push myself out of my comfort zone is real these days as I actively work towards challenging my anxiety and depression. It just seems like the next step to tackling apprehensions and looking fear in the face and saying, “Watch me do it anyway.”
My profession has opened up a bunch of opportunities to travel and teach workshops at planner events. It’s definitely an unexpected side effect of my business, but I’ve completely embraced it with thankful and open arms. Who knew this introvert could get so much joy out of teaching workshops, but you don’t know until you give it a go, right? Usually my husband Alex tags along with me, but his promotional business has been really taking off and giving him a lot of travel opportunities as well. So we’re doing what any two-business couple has to, divide and conquer.
The Vegas trip although brief, showed me a lot about myself. I transferred flights, took my first Uber ride alone, and navigated hotel registration all on my own. I’ve always just relied on Alex’s extroverted personality to handle things for me. But I did them. And you know what? I barely even broke a nervous sweat in the process.
So I want to do even more solo travel this year. Why? Just because I want to see if I can do it. It’s so easy to fall into a routine of taking the easy way out and letting Alex do all the social interactions, but if Vegas taught me anything it’s that I’m more than capable to do it on my own. And that’s a pretty empowering feeling.
So if you’re unsure about travelling alone, try to really figure out what you’re so nervous about. Is it finding your gate at the airport? Is it navigating a ride from the airport to the hotel? Once you figure out what exactly you’re worried about, then you can actively work to put things in place so you won’t be anymore. Ask the front desk which gate you’re supposed to be at. Schedule an Uber ride ahead of time or take a taxi from the taxi line. And don’t let the fear of solo travel keep you from doing it. You’ll be surprised at how smoothly it’ll go.
It’s alarming to think that it’s already been a week since I came home from Las Vegas. My first Go Wild Conference could not have been more amazing (and of course I filmed the whole thing) and I wanted to document it better than I ever have before.
This is my first attempt at a memory book and I’ve learned a ton of tips and tricks in the process of putting this one together. I’ll lay those on ya as we go through some of my favorite pages.
If you take any advice away from this post, it should be this. Bring adhesivewith you. I LOVE this adhesive runner from Tombow because it makes everything super easy without making a huge mess. It made attaching room keys, postcards, and random odds and ends incredibly simple.
I also brought my Polaroid Zip along with me to print photos at the end of each day. I’m the type of person who forgets things easily, so I wanted to make sure I took the time to document each day to remember all the fun details.
A small pair of scissors also proved to be quite useful to cut washi and trim up photos. I didn’t really have any sort of plan when I started this book either. I just put things down as I went along and I loved the freedom of just throwing things into it as I got them. No stress.
Sticker contact cards are the popular way of sharing Instagram names and contact info at planner events these days. I received quite a few within just the first few hours of the conference and I wanted to make sure I had a way to capture them all. I took a few stickers off of every sampler and put them on a couple of different collage pages. I love how it looks when it’s finished and I feel like I’m not wasting stickers I may not use.
Anything I thought I could remotely use in the book, I snagged up. I took brochures at various hotels and maps from help desks. I didn’t use many of them, but I am obsessed with this map of the strip and of course the little llama sticker to mark the conference location.
Our swag bags included a roll of conference washi tape so I disregarded my usual “meh” opinions of washi to create this dashboard on one of the pages. When in Rome right? Or in this case…Vegas…
I do a full flip through of my memory journal in this video if you want to get a better look at all the pages! Do you keep memory books? What are some of your tips and tricks?
Is it fair that I feel like I get to celebrate Christmas every month? Is there such a thing as too much excitement? I may die from it if that’s the case. Building the Oh, Hello Box every month is literally my favorite part of my job these days. So thanks for that, planner friends.
This month’s theme is Coffee Shop Vibes. I wanted a box that contained things you would usually see, do, and use while at a coffee shop. Of course a large coffee mug topped the list of things I had to add. Motivational quotes are my jam and nothing starts a day off better than a quote reminding you that it’s a good day to have a good day.
Of course I had to sprinkle in my love of plants into the box with this rubber key chain as well as a blossom kit where you can grow your own poppy flowers!
Probably my two favorite items in this month’s box are the tartan tote and the coffee cup dangle enamel pin. I love how classy the tote feels while still giving off serious oh, hello vibes. Plus the enamel pin is just so cool. I mean come on, the spoon dangles. Witchcraft I tell ya.
There are a ton of other products I haven’t highlighted in this post, so if you want to see them all be sure to watch the video! This box will be available Saturday, April 6th all the way through the month or until they sell out. Each box has over $100 in lifestyle and planner items and costs $44.95 with a flat shipping fee!
