Travel Expectations can destroy a perfectly good trip. Bucket list. Dream Trip. Trip of a Lifetime.  Places to see, things to do/eat/try before you die. We seem to put a lot of expectations on our vacations. No wonder so many of us feel slightly disappointed when we travel!

Bucket List?

I don’t have a bucket list.  The very name bothers me. A bucket list indicates that I have a set of tasks to do before I shuffle off this mortal coil. I don’t know about you, but I have more than enough deadlines and to-dos in my everyday life to add that element to my leisure time!

Bucket list also seems terribly static to me. I am far too changeable to list out every destination in order of desire and stick to it. At any given time I have a running list of ten to twenty places I want to go.

That list changes frequently. Articles, movies, recommendations from friends, even the setting of a book can strike my imagination, and the next thing I know, a new entry is added. Thus the bucket list concept feels like too much pressure. It also seems boring. I want the list to grow, not shrink.

If I die with 30 places on the list, that’s fine – as long as I was traveling along the way!

Trip of Lifetime or the Next Trip

Likewise, this notion that any vacation has to be a ‘trip of a lifetime’ seems a bit heavy. It seems like a lot of pressure to put on yourself.

As I have talked about before here, things go wrong on trips. I have a running joke that without fail the one thing I really, really want to see in a place will be undergoing renovation.

My first trip to Amsterdam, the Rijksmuseum was being renovated. In Prague, the Astronomical Clock in the Old Town Square was hidden beneath scaffolding and netting. If my trip of a lifetime included a visit to either of those places, it would have been devastating.

Every trip I take is simply my next trip. I am always excited to go. The thrill is in the being there at all; it is in the wonder that I live in an age where crossing an ocean is a matter of hours rather than weeks.

Each trip is a chance to learn something new, experience something unexpected and maybe meet someone new. That is the best possible outcome. Make no mistake – I am not lowering the bar, I am increasing my opportunity for surprise and delight. How can that be a bad thing?

Their List vs. Your Trip

Now we come to those lovely clickable lists that make me crazy. Places to see before you die. Talk about travel expectations! Take this trip and you can die happy; no pressure there.

My biggest problem here is that this is their list, the author’s list – it isn’t yours. While they are good for providing inspiration, they too often become a substitute for taking the trip you really want to take.

It goes beyond lists on the internet or magazine articles. Our friends can do this to us as well. They start putting their own travel expectations on to us. Let me give you an example from my own life.

Not Going to Barcelona

I was planning a trip to Spain. While I was still sorting out my itinerary, I had loads of well-meaning friends and co-workers tell me that I absolutely had to go to Barcelona. As soon as I said Spain, they said Barcelona. No trip to Spain, apparently, was complete unless Barcelona was visited.

Over a matter of a few weeks, I found myself getting really irritated with my trip planning. Most of my trip planning time had been sucked up by researching Barcelona and I was far less excited about my trip than I had been at the start.

Fortunately, I have a lovely brother who asked the right question, where did I want to go? To my embarrassment, I realized that I didn’t want to go to Barcelona. This wasn’t the trip for that city. The reasons my friends gave me were good, they just weren’t my reasons.

In the end I went to Madrid, Valladolid and Segovia. It was a wonderful trip. It hit all my requirements. I learned new things, had some unexpected experiences and met some lovely people.

Like-to-See List

My list is a like-to-see list. It is not a to-do list, and it isn’t a bucket list. It is a living list that changes, grows, and adapts. This list allows me to change my mind or even to take advantage of unexpected situations.

If you read the post on Prague, you might have noted that trip was actually an opportunistic stop. My job took me to Krakow for a week of work, and so I took advantage of that to add a stop in Prague that was amazing.

The more you travel, the more you will grow and gain confidence. Suddenly that entry on your bucket list isn’t that interesting. You may discover that your reasons for putting a place on the list are no longer compelling.

Travel Expectations

Let me say it again. There is no perfect destination and there is no perfect trip. Trips should bring joy and surprise rather than bitterness and disappointment.

The best thing you can do for your vacation, and your sanity, is to not put so much weight on it. Aim for lots of great trips, not one trip of a lifetime; you will end up with a treasure trove of once in a lifetime experiences.

Not every trip I have taken has been fabulous. There are some spectacular missteps that I can recall. When I look back on my travels, moments of irritation, evenings of homesickness and loneliness, and even a couple of fairly unpleasant travel companions come to mind.

However, in all of the situations I just listed, there are also some lovely memories.

Bottom line – travel is a very personal experience. Go where you want to go, go on your own terms and keep your travel expectations realistic. Your trip won’t be perfect, but it will be yours and it will be memorable.