There are some people who love traveling more than just about anything else. These individuals have found it difficult to get by without it since the pandemic began. Covid-19 has reduced their opportunities, but now they’re excited that governments are slowly starting to ease restrictions.
You might belong to another group of individuals, though. Maybe you have not done very much traveling in your life, but you’ve sometimes thought about how you’d like to do it one day. You just haven’t found the right reason or opportunity yet to pull the trigger on that big trip you’ve considered.
Let’s talk about a few of the best reasons to travel this year. If you’re experiencing any of these, you might not want to delay any longer.
You’re Experiencing Boredom or Frustration
One reason why you might choose to travel this year is that the daily grind has become nearly intolerable. Maybe you’re driving more aggressively during rush hour because your work is getting to you. If so, you’re not alone: the NHTSA says that in a decade, aggressive driving incidents increased by nearly 500%.
You can look for a new job or try to make some other changes in your life, but being in a new city or even a different country might be the first step toward making those decisions. In a completely different locale from what you know, you can look at your life with fresh eyes. You may not be able to attain that perspective until you get out of your comfort zone.
You Got an Unexpected Windfall
You also might decide that now is the time to travel if you got some money that you did not expect. Maybe this is what you choose to do with one of the economic stimulus payments that the government has sent out in the past year.
Maybe a relative died, or perhaps a parent decided to gift you some money now rather than wait and leave it to you as an inheritance. Maybe you won a court case and got a judgment in your favor. It could even be that you won the lottery or something as unusual as that.
However you got the money, traveling might not be the most practical thing to do with it, but sometimes you have to throw caution to the wind. At the very least, you can bring back some memories of the one time you did something completely unexpected and reckless.
You’re Thinking About Expatriating
Some people are thinking about leaving America and moving to another country. Perhaps you have your eye on Japan, Canada, Mexico, Ireland, or elsewhere.
If you really want to move out of the country, you might do so because you want to live somewhere that is more in line with your political beliefs. Maybe you want to become a citizen of another country that has better healthcare. Perhaps you even want to leave because you feel like you have better business opportunities or a job waiting for you.
Before you decide that it’s time to leave, though, you need to first visit the country you’re considering so that you can look it over. You might want to spend as long as several weeks there walking around, riding public transportation, eating the food, and talking to the people.
This sort of traveling is more of a scouting trip than a vacation. You’re trying to see what it would be like to live in this new place before you commit entirely to making such a significant life change.
You Want to Meet Someone You Only Know Online
It could be that you met someone online, and you feel like you have a special connection. In the past, such a thing might seem like unrealistic romantic comedy fare. These days, though, these sorts of meetings are not that unusual.
You might meet this person via a dating site, or perhaps you work together, and you connected that way, even if you have never seen them in person yet. You might also have a situation where you want to meet a person you know only from the internet, not because of a romantic attraction, but because you have become close friends.
The internet is remarkable in the way that it can bring people together. It’s true that it can cause harm as well, but there are many people from different states and countries that get together digitally before they do so in real life.
You Want to Make a Spiritual Journey
You might decide that the time is right to travel because you want to make a spiritual journey. For instance, the Muslim faith dictates that its followers should visit Mecca at some point in their lives. Many Jews decide to visit Jerusalem to connect with their roots or to see distant relatives.
You don’t even need to have a conventional religion to appreciate what some cultures consider to be holy sites. Some of these places are among the most beautiful in the world.
Perhaps you feel like there is some turmoil in your life. You might choose to visit a spiritual place to reconnect with your most essential self.
You might elect to undertake this sort of journey if you got out of a relationship or your marriage just ended. You might go on this type of trip if a partner, a parent, or a child just died.
There are always going to be reasons to delay traveling, but sometimes, you need to plunge forward and do something that you’ve thought about for a long time. If you are not spontaneous now, then you might never be.
As difficult as the pandemic has been for many people, some are taking advantage of it to seize the day from now on. You never know when some large and all-encompassing event might prevent you from doing what you want. It may be best to undertake the journey you’ve thought about as soon as you get the chance.
