There are two major reasons why I wake up to go to work everyday: Family and Travel. There was a time in my life when I was jobless for over 4 months but I didn’t really care because I was still single and I had enough money that I had accumulated throughout my internship to allow me travel.
Married life came with so many responsibilities that forced me to shelve my passion of travel for a while and convinced myself that I had enough of this in my younger days. However each year that flew by without travel left me feeling dull and empty. Am thankful that my husband shares this passion with me, therefore we came up with a plan. We started saving for travel at the beginning of each year. We decided to start with touring Uganda as you all well know there is so much beauty in Uganda.
November has so far been our family travel month. In 2015 we headed out to Jinja…I had been here countless times but each new trip left me feeling refreshed. November 2016 was a family month as the twins were only 2 months at the time so we skipped this year. 2017 was a year to reconcile our finances as taking care of twins had placed a huge financial burden on us. Now 2018, we started seeing some light at the end of of the tunnel. So in November 2018 we set out to kick Fort portal off our bucket list. I enjoyed this trip mostly because it allowed me to spend some time with my husband alone away from the kids. In Jan my husband continued to kick more places off his travel bucket list by visiting India. March 2019 I kicked Dubai off my bucket list too.We both had different reasons for traveling but at the end of the day we were glad we had traveled. So my love for travel has got me thinking about this article and I decided to make a few recommendations for those setting out to travel.
1. Plan Your Journey.
This is an important step ; it mainly entails you mapping out the finances, and human resources. I personally start saving for my trips 6 months in advance. If I’m travelling with someone we plan so as to take our leave at the same time to avoid any inconveniences and disappointment.
I would like to emphasize the importance of planning your journey yourself versus using travel agents. I later learnt that these agents inflate the prices making your trip seem to be more expensive than it actually is. Utilize the internet and ask around for people who have visited the area you are planning to visit.
2. Don’t Travel Alone.
Experiences are best enjoyed with someone to oooh and aaah at the musings you meet during your trip. I know sometimes it’s inevitable to travel alone but if there’s a choice, choose to travel with someone. I traveled to Dubai alone but I met wonderful people during my trip that made it worthwhile.
3. Research about the place you intend to travel to. This will help you avoid being inconvenienced by some obvious things. I will still draw from my Dubai experience; I passed through the airport seeing ladies giving out free simcards and I figured since my trip was very short I probably did not need one only to realize later there is free WiFi allover Dubai and the only way to access it is with a Dubai simcard, not to forget communication becomes much easier with a local simcard.
4. Choose To enjoy Your Trip
There are people who get away for a holiday and carry their day to day burdens and responsibilities with them. Some of you kept asking me if I miss my girls in the 4 days I was away,of course I did but this did not stop me from enjoying my trip. If it means switching off your phone please do, some opportunities come once in a life time. Please enjoy your trip.
5. Finally use this time to meditate on your life in general and if possible rebrand yourself if need be. My best part of traveling is the actual journey itself. I usually find myself in meditation subconsciously. I also love water and nature therefore i ensure to include these activities whenever possible as these really calm me down . It is for this reason I always feel new and rejuvenated every after a trip.
Do you love travelling like me? If so Please share with me your experiences in the comments below. Thank you for taking time to read this piece.