- Alright, let's talk about travel mistakes.
- Mistakes? Me? Never.
- You may be surprised.
(upbeat music)
Hi, everyone, my name is Kristen Sarah,
this is Hopscotch The Globe and I am here
to share with you eight travel mistakes
you need to stop making.
- Seriously? Seriously?
I've read in so many blog posts,
I've watched so many YouTube videos
and so many friends told me
that you're supposed to move slow.
I get it, but this slow? Come on!
My whole trip to Costa Rica is ruined.
So disappointing.
- Setting too many expectations.
Now this can be anything from expecting a train
to arrive at a certain time and it doesn't
or having an expectation of a certain experience
or a certain place based on someone else's experience
or photos you might have seen and you get
to that destination and nothing as you thought
it was going to be.
Setting yourself up with too many expectations
is setting yourself up for disappointment
because you're taking an experience you haven't had yet
and you're playing it out in your head
how you think it's going to be, and then when you get there,
and it's not what you expected,
this can be disappointing.
So what I say is if you're going to expect anything,
expect the unexpected because travel is all about
the unexpected and that is what makes it so special,
to have these experiences you could have never determined
were gonna happen to you ahead of time.
That is what makes it so magical.
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Your trip doesn't start when you get to your destination.
- Right, it starts when you board the plane.
- It actually starts a lot sooner than that.
Thinking the trip starts when you get to your destination.
It actually starts way before that
in the trip planning stage.
Planning your trip is a big part
of your whole travel experience.
Booking your flight, deciding where you're gonna go,
where you're gonna stay, how long you're gonna go for,
what you're gonna do is all part
of the whole overall experience.
Planning your trip is so exciting
because this is when everything starts to come to life,
so although getting to your destination
is the ultimate goal, trip planning
is when the excitement starts.
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Thinking your trip ends when you get back home,
and this is a big one that I think
really throws people off guard
because I get emails daily, and I have for years,
from people pretty much saying I feel off,
I feel depressed, I feel out of place, I feel overwhelmed
after coming home from a trip.
Now this could have been a week-long trip,
a month-long, a year-long, it doesn't really matter,
it's the same feeling that many of us experience.
I call it Post-Travel Depression
and what happens is you come back from a trip,
somewhere where you experienced so many new things,
unique experiences that you had and it changes you.
It changes you in such a short time
and then you come back to a place that is so familiar,
where nothing has changed, a place you call home
and you're a different person,
but nothing else around you is different.
It's a lot to process.
So, allowing yourself to go through that,
to kinda go through your trip,
because you didn't get to do that
when you were traveling, you're experiencing so much,
but you didn't get to process it.
You come home, that's when you're gonna process it
and it can take a long time and talking about it,
going through your pictures, writing about it,
whatever you need to do to go through it
is important and allow yourself to do it
and don't feel bad about it, don't try to
ask why am I feeling this way because it is so normal,
so many of us go through it.
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- So you're saying I need to learn an entire new language
before I travel to a destination?
- Not an entire language, but it's good to know
a few key phrases in the language
of the destination that you're going to.
Not learning the language beforehand
and now I'm not trying to say go and learn an entire
language before you go to the destination
because, realistically, that would be a freakin'
superpower and if you can speak every language
on this planet, I wanna be your best friend.
Most likely, you're not gonna know the entire language
for each place you visit, but it's good to know
a few phrases, so like hello, how are you, I'm hungry,
where's the washroom, these little things
will go a long way.
Not only will it help you get around
and figure things out easier,
but locals will respect you more.
It will also allow you to have more of a connection
with the place and the people.
You feel more immersed in the culture
when you can speak a little bit of the language.
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Traveling to escape your real life.
So many people make this mistake.
They think that if they travel across the world,
that they're gonna all of the sudden have no problems,
that all the problems they had back home
or stress-related issues are just going to melt away
like that and it doesn't happen that way.
You still have to process them, but traveling
can definitely help you do it because it opens
you up to a new world, new experiences,
to see people around the world who are exactly how you are,
who are going through the exact same things,
even though they live a completely different life.
It allows you to understand yourself more,
it allows you to go through challenges
and learn how to deal with them better,
so, ultimately, can help you with those issues
that you're dealing with back home,
but it's not gonna just make all those problems melt away.
(upbeat music)
- (gasp) ♪ I found you! ♪
It only took six flights, five cars, two taxis,
one train, three buses, and a 100 kilometer hike,
♪ But I found you, I found you ♪
- Traveling to find yourself.
This is similar to the last point.
Having that expectation that you can go
on a one-week retreat somewhere and then,
all of the sudden, find yourself
is putting a lot of pressure on yourself
and setting yourself up for disappointment.
Again, we're going back to the expectations of
I'm going on a soul-searching journey
is different than I'm going to find myself in Italy.
Travel does have a way of helping you to understand
the person you are or the person you want to be
because it shows you your likes and dislikes.
It allows you to surround yourself
with people that inspire you, people that you relate to.
It allows you to face those fears and try new things
and see how similar we all are around the world,
even though we live different lifestyles.
So, yes it help you understand better who you are,
but going on a trip with the expectation
that you're going to find yourself,
again is really setting yourself up to be disappointed
because it's not a game, but ultimately travel
is a great way to learn more about yourself.
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- OMG I just got back from Paris, it was just a weekend trip
but you must have been following me,
it's all over my Instagram, my Facebook, my Twitter,
my YouTube, my blog, my everything. Of course my Snapchat.
- Traveling to brag about it, this one's a big one,
in this day in age with social media,
specifically Instagram.
I have found that a lot of people that I used to follow
would post these pictures that were very curated,
more like modeling shoots,
of places they've been to around the world,
and more or less bragging about it instead of inspiring me.
There's a difference between saying
hey look at me, I'm here,
and inspiring people to go and travel to these destinations.
That's the difference between influencer and a model.
Not to say that these photos
aren't beautiful because they are,
but traveling to places just to take the photo to post
to say I've been here is not travel.
Travel is about getting out into this world
and experiencing new things, meeting different people,
learning that we are so similar,
what we see in the media is far from the truth
of how reality actually is.
It's about stepping out of your comfort zone.
It's about trying new things,
it's about living different ways of life.
It's about opening up your eyes
and being present in the moment
and if you can share a photo and get that message across,
I don't think that's bragging about it,
I think that's inspiring.
There's a difference.
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- So what do you mean by traveling through the lens only?
- Traveling through the lens and the lens only.
This is something I've struggled with over the years.
What I mean by this is always
having your camera ready to go to record,
to take photos of a new experience during your travels.
It's great, it's great to have these experiences
you're having documented so you can look back on them
for years to come or share them with friends and family,
but if you're not really experiencing it,
if you're just looking through a lens
and that is your memory of this travel experience,
then what's the point?
You might as well just watch a video on YouTube.
Put that camera down and experience the experience
for yourself first and foremost.
Be present because that is the whole point of travel.
If you're not gonna do this,
if you're not gonna really soak up the moment,
then what's the point of it?
Now I wanna hear from you guys, let's open up a little bit.
Share with me, share with all of us one of the mistakes
that I mentioned that you've made
because I've made these mistakes,
that's how I know they're mistakes,
why you shouldn't make them.
But I'd love for you to pick one, pick two
and share with us an experience
that you had that you learned from,
and also if you have any other travel mistakes
that you wanna share with us,
leave them in the comment section below.
I cannot wait to read them.
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