How to travel regularly while working full-time
How to travel regularly while working full-time
Now more than ever, people are looking for ways to explore and see the world as best as possible. If the pandemic has taught us one thing, it is that life is rather short and in the blink of an eye, the world as we know it can change. Travelling has been a part of my life for a while now and time and time again I’ve been asked for tips on how I travel so often and frequently while working as a full time medical doctor. And while I don’t think I travel as much as I’d like to, I will say I travel quite a bit and so I thought I’d share a few tips on how I do it.
Just a little note, I do mainly local travel and haven’t done as much international travel as yet but it is definitely on my list of things to do in this lifetime. Now that we’ve cleared that up…. let’s begin shall we.
Related: Jamaica’s Top Travel Bloggers Reveal Their Favourite Local Travel Destinations And Covid Travel Tips
Have a Travel Mindset
The fact is we tend to make time for the things that are important to us. If you want to travel more, part of this involves making travel a priority in your life. You are going to need the mindset that travel is an important part of your life and that it is absolutely possible for you to go on trips and vacations you see plastered all over social media. Ever-so-often what stops many people from even attempting to travel is thinking they can’t. The thought is that they don’t have enough time, money, resources or even the opportunity to travel and that is simply not true. So if travelling is something you truly want to do then the first thing you have to do is believe its possible and necessary.
Begin by travelling locally
It is only natural for us when we think of travel to automatically think of adventures across nations far and wide and making trips to luxurious escapes, but we tend to forget that oftentimes we have magnificent places right in our own backyards. I believe that unless you live in a war-torn country or a country with serious human rights issues, then you more than likely have some known and hidden gems you’ve yet to visit. Even try going to places deemed tourist traps and bargain your way through to better prices. It’s fun to live like a tourist for a day and have experiences you never thought you’d have. A lot of time tourists see more of our countries than we do simply because they choose to. You can even grab a group of friends or join a local travel group. Starting in your own backyard not only introduces you to new places, it also builds your confidence before you take on bigger trips, travels and vacations.
3. Use your weekends
Most jobs involve having weekends off and while weekends are good to catch up on chores and errands, I suggest using at least one weekend a month to travel to somewhere new. Start small by visiting somewhere in your city, maybe a park, museum, beach, some place in your city/parish/state you’ve never been before. Embrace the experience of using your weekends to explore new places. Grab your family, friends or even go by yourself and use your weekends to explore. Especially long holiday weekends that give an extra day or 2 are perfect for taking time for an adventure. And if you don’t get weekends, then go during the week. Most travel spots tend to be empty during the week which gives you more free reign over your destination. You know how many times I’ve gotten bonus tours or full service experiences just because I’m the only person there?! I find many guides enjoy the opportunity to tour and showcase their knowledge whether it is one person or 50 persons. The point is use some of your free days/ weekends to begin your travel journey and you definitely won’t regret it.
4. Use your vacation time/ P.T.O
There is no reward for working yourself to the bone. Grind culture and team no sleep will have many people feeling terrible for taking time off to rest, relax and vacation. Some work places will make it seem like you’re blasphemous for requesting to use you personal time off because they will be short. The thing is that is not your responsibility to shoulder. Even the good Lord resting on the 7th day. Rest and relaxation is important. The body and mind needs it. There have been so many instances and articles about people who worked hard all their lives with little time off and you know what happened when retirement came? Absolutely nothing. No fanfare or anything, maybe a retirement party and that’s it.
Idk if many of you saw the feature about the man who worked at Burger King for 27 years, and all he received was a Starbucks reusable cup, two bags of candy, and some movie ticket vouchers. Had the video not went viral, that probably would’ve been the end of the story and the fact is not everyone goes viral. Many people work hard and miss time to rest, time with their family and so much more for jobs that oftentimes don’t value you as they should. So you need to use your allocated vacation days, sick days, P.T.O and whatever other days you are contractually obligated to receive.
Travel is not just about seeing shiny new things and places, it is also culturally enriching and expands and opens the mind to new possibilities. More times than not, we don’t remember the material things we have, but we cherish and remember the experiences we had. Don’t fall victim to the idea that you need to grind nonstop, use your vacation time to your advantage and travel to your heart’s content.
5. Build your travel budget
There is no ifs, ands, buts or ways around it, travelling takes some amount of money. Whether it be for room stays, transportation costs, guide fees, the cost of excursions and experiences, whatever it maybe travelling costs money. But don’t despair, there is a solution for that. Incorporating and setting aside money in your budget for travel, building it up is a great way to add travel to your life. Using things like credit card rewards points if accessible, setting up a travel account or even a physical travel jar or using services like groupon in the US are some ways you can get value for money from travelling. Having a budget for travel means thinking of all the things you’d need to account for in your trip, assigning a cost to each and then saving towards that goal. It doesn’t matter if it takes a long time or if you can get to your savings goal quickly, the point is to make steady consistent deposits to your travel fund and build it up to the point where you can go on your trips and excursions.
And bonus tip, always be on the look out for deals. Travel tends to have popular and down seasons and things tend to be cheaper during the down seasons, so keep your eyes out because you may come across a deal cheaper than you originally budgeted for and can take your trips sooner than expected.
