3 Habits to Declutter Your Travels
How to travel without stress in 2024.
Summer is here.
What should be a mostly peaceful and relaxing time to pack your bags and travel, isn’t always that.
There are many situations where travel can cause a lot of stress.
People are cluttered, still stressed, and overworked.
Before you can fully dive into the summer holiday season you need to declutter yourself and then your travels.
And that’s exactly what I’m going to teach you in this article.
1 — Make a Plan
This might be the most obvious one.
You don’t travel without a plan. Unless you want to and don’t have to stress about this.
But for most people (like me), they need a proper schedule.
If you don’t know yet what you’ll be doing at your destination, think about it — you don’t have to be in your hotel room all day thinking about “what to do next?”
But.
Here’s a big catch.
You need to keep it flexible — if you’re going to set it in stone, you might get stressed about it when plans change.
And it’s very possible that plans will change.
Remember, it’s all about fun and getting relaxed.
I’ve got this little notebook where I plan all my trips, humans like to write things down so don’t do it on your phone or computer — you’ll bind with your plans if you physically write them down.
This also includes a packing list.
I’ve stood in my hotel room so often, not knowing what I brought and if everything is back in the case.
So what to do for planning
Write a (flexible) itinerary.
Plan your trip on paper.
Keep a packing list of your stuff.
That will do.
2 — Mindfulness (even on vacation)
Especially on vacation, I’d almost say.
I’m sure I don’t have to explain why being mindful and practicing mindfulness is so important to declutter.
If you’d like to read more about that, I refer to one of my other “declutter” articles.
It helps you relax and be calm.
Exactly what we need when we’re traveling. We want to be able to focus on the things we like, not the things we fear.
Be conscious about what you’re doing.
Don’t just sit on your train, or plan, and let time go by — really be aware of what you’re doing.
Adding a little breathing exercise every morning and evening will make you really at peace when you’re going to a faraway country.
It’s as simple as:
Slowly inhaling
Pause for a couple of seconds
Slowly exhaling
And then repeat that for 1–5 minutes.
You’ll notice that you’re getting calmer, your heartbeat is dropping and you relax.
If you feel stressed during your trip, you can always do this to reduce the stress and declutter.
3 — Digital Declutter
I’ve written a complete article about this, but I’ll try to explain in the context of travel now.
From that linked article there are 5 lessons:
Unsubscribe from unnecessary e-mails.
Organize your files.
Limit social media use.
Tidy up your (digital) workspace.
and Regular Declutter Sessions, meaning to clear your home screen and app folders every once and a while.
The ones that are applicable for travel are probably the limit of social media use and just not engaging with your e-mails at all.
You’re relaxing, not working.
Social media can be fun on vacation. You want to share what you’re doing and post images and videos of the most amazing places you’ve just seen.
You shouldn’t.
There are two options here:
Don’t do it at all
Do it when you’re back home
You don’t want to get trapped in the social media loophole when you’re out in the world and can enjoy it in real life.
So simply don’t.
Shoot your photos, shoot your videos — done, post when you’re home.
That’s the best way to deal with social media in general.
Final Thoughts
Take all these ideas into consideration before you leave for a big trip.
I’ve got one coming up, to Switzerland.
My sister and I are going to hike again, in the beautiful Bernese Oberland mountains.
I can’t wait!
I’ll be shooting lots of photos and videos and share them with you (when I’m back home)
If you want to stay updated about that you should follow me here on Substack Notes.
