Indecision, what a harsh task mistress she is! I know her all too well, especially when it comes to travel planning. Indecision loves to butt her nose in from the very start and second guess everything I am doing.

“That flight? Really? You want to take that flight?” she asks just as I think I have it down.

“There? You want to spend time there. What an interesting choice.” She mocks as I peruse various places to see.

Indecision haunts my hotel choices; chiding me that surely I can do better than that or reminding me that I’m not exactly made of money. No matter how small the decision, she has a thought on my thoughts!

Shut Up Already!

Getting Indecision to quiet down is a constant battle. I put most of this down to anxiety. It is completely understandable, because this is a new place and really far away. Of course I am going to be a little anxious.

A trip abroad costs a goodly amount of money. Sure, this isn’t ‘buy a house’ kind of money, but it isn’t exactly chump change, as my Dad used to say. It isn’t unreasonable to worry that a bad hotel or the wrong flight could at least cast a pall across your trip. Worse still would be ending up in a place that sounded good but in reality wasn’t all that interesting.

So how do I get Indecision to shut up already about all of this?

Zen and the Art of Trip Planning

It has taken me a while, a dozen or so trips, to find my trip planning zen. For me, touching that place of calm helps to make Indecision a little less frantic and intrusive.

What do I mean by that? First off, going with your gut is a good thing. If you want to go somewhere, go. Nothing says you are contractually bound to stay there for the entire trip if it isn’t great. Generally, we are headed to a continent, like Europe or South America. Even a country such as India is pretty darn big. So if place A doesn’t do it for you, there are other places nearby that just might.

Secondly, I try to find the root of my anxiety. Right now I am planning a trip to France and Germany and I should be over the moon about it. Indecision, however, means that 20 days out from my trip I have yet to nail anything – not a single aspect of my trip – down.

When I sat and thought about this last night, it comes down to money anxiety. This is the first time in quite a while that I will be taking a trip during peak travel season. As a result, things are a little more expensive than I was thinking. Not terribly so, but a bit.

Breathe! Just Breathe!

Recognizing that both these factors – the fear of the unknown and my own money issues hounding me – has helped me take a step back and think lucidly about this trip. What do I want from it, what is going to work for me – these are the key questions I am asking myself.

A few deep breaths later and I have a better handle on what I am looking for from this jaunt. Primarily I need some down time, things have been stressful lately, so I want a trip that is pretty much stress free.

I am not a sit on the beach and read a book for two weeks kind of gal however, so that means that my second consideration is that wherever I go, I am going to need some things to keep me interested and engaged.

Indecision wants to horn in on that second one, but she sure can’t argue with the first!

All of this noise in my head led me to an interesting realization. Some of the best trips I have taken have been ones where I did minimal planning. It sounds so counter-intuitive to me, and yet I know in my heart that the best trips I have taken have been the result of not deciding on anything other than were I want to go first.

Take my recent trip to Spain. I locked down that I would start in Madrid and then I winged it. All I had was a vague idea of what I wanted to see and where I wanted to go after Madrid, but nothing was set in stone.

Once I was in Madrid, I let my back brain do some mulling and number crunching and vetting of ideas. I sat on my bed in my hotel one evening and looked at what was an easy train ride away, and then I decided on where I was going next.

When I got to the second destination, I repeated the process. It was an amazing trip, far better – and far different – than the one that Indecision was hounding me about.

Learning From My Own History

The most amazing part of all of this is that when I look back on most of the trips I have taken over the years, each of them have some aspect of winging it. Even my very first trip was not the meticulously planned and plotted ideal I like to think it was. Heck, I ended up in Normandy with no notion of how I was getting back to London (where I was to catch my flight home).

In about twenty minutes of research, I booked a ferry from Le Harve, France to Portsmouth, UK (and thus I can now say I have flown over, ridden under, and floated across the English Channel!). Once I arrived in Portsmouth, I found a hotel room. That evening, as I reveled in the air-conditioned splendor of my hotel (after a week of record temperatures in charming little hotels that relied on small room fans for air movement…) I found a hotel in London for the last few nights of my trip. It was grand.

On a trip to Croatia, I convinced my friends to leave the now rainy Dalmatian coast behind and head to the rainier (and chillier) Sarajevo – with a quick stop in Mostar. Even with the weather, it was an amazing trip. It was an experience I would have missed if I had insisted on staying true to my well laid out and Indecision vetted plan. The last leg of the trip I was so giddy with my new-found power that I extended my stay on the island of Hvar by three nights.

Indecision Isn’t All Bad

Bottom line here is that when Indecision is nagging at you, listen to what she is really trying to say. Sometime she just wants to call your attention to something that is making you anxious, and that anxiety has the very real possibility of sinking your trip.

Indecision might also be trying to tell you to lighten up. As tempting and comforting as it sounds to have every last minute – second  – of your trip meticulously planned, there are some lovely things out there waiting for you if you could just let go of the control stick for a moment.

Like all advice on this blog – or anywhere – your mileage may vary. Whatever you do, don’t let Indecision bully you into doing nothing.