You’re probably terrible at keeping your New Year’s resolutions. Go to the gym five days a week! Mmm hmm. Stop eating a ten pound Chipotle burrito and order the salad instead! Suuuuuure.
But you’re a traveler. This is something you’re passionate about. You’re not passionate about the gym or salads, but when it comes to packing a suitcase, browsing the web for awesome places to visit, and hopping onto a plane, boat, train, bus, or into your own car–? Yes please.
Here are some New Year’s resolutions for travelers that you can keep. They’ll make you infinitely happier than any of your other resolutions, and they’ll expand your horizons even more than traveling normally does.
1. Visit a place you’ve never been to.
I’ve never been to India. Also, I’ve never been to North Dakota. Seeing a new place doesn’t have to cost you a ton of money. I used to have a fantasy of spontaneously tacking a map of the United States to my wall, closing my eyes, and throwing a dart at it. Wherever it would land I would drive to that place, buy myself a cup of coffee, then drive home.
But that doesn’t work so well when you have other responsibilities, like, oh–a job, kids, pets, etc. However, you can plan a weekend, two weeks, or six months (if your budget and schedule allow), to see some place new. Maybe you’ve been dreaming of planning a trip Shanghai for years. And if you can afford it, you should make that trip in 2015. If you can’t afford it, then choose some place else. It doesn’t even have to be interesting, it should just be new.
In 2014 I visited Colby, Kansas. Why, you ask? Just because. I spent one night in Colby, had a baked potato at a mediocre steakhouse, bought a bottle of cheap wine at the town’s quaint–and very busy–liquor store, then drove home the next morning. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was new. And it helped temporarily quench my insatiable thirst for travel.
What new place will you see in 2015?
2. Eat something you’ve never eaten
I’ve spent a total of five months in Thailand, and in that time I ate a ton of food I had never eaten. Deep-fried meal worms. They taste like soy nuts! Rectangular blood cubes, floating in my pork soup. They were mostly just salty and squishy. Catfish heads in coconut broth. Not really my thing.
Last fall I went to a remote lake in the northern woods of Minnesota and stopped in Grand Rapids (not the Michigan one) to try one of the best pasties in the state. I had never had a pasty before, and it was delicious.
Maybe you’re a picky eater and prefer to eat at Burger King when you travel. I understand; eating familiar food is a great way to fend off culture shock. When I got e.coli in Nepal I felt incredibly homesick, as well as sick sick, and spent several days watching MTV India and eating Pringles and drinking Sprite. And I love Nepalese food!
But it would have been remiss of me to eat only Pringles and Sprite during my month-long trip. Which is why I also tried momos for the first time, ate water buffalo yogurt, and drank butter tea at a Tibetan monastery (so salty).
You could try frog legs in Paris, poutine in Montreal, fish tacos in San Diego, or wild boar sausage at the hipster restaurant in the city closest to yours.
What new food will you try this year?
3. Take time to get to know a local
When I was in Nepal I spent quite a bit of time getting to know the children I taught. So many of them were incredibly smart, kind, and generous. A group of little girls brought me Nepalese style bracelets and (painfully) shoved them over my hand onto my wrist. They also insisted that I wear a tika (sometimes known as a bindi), and they enjoyed laughing at my sloppy Nepali.
We talked about religion, history, Nepal, and the United States. I loved getting to know them, and though it’s cliche to say, I probably learned more from them than they learned from me.
There was one night where I was on the roof of an apartment building in Kathmandu with a family who had been displaced from their small town because the Nepalese Civil War was escalating. We ate, talked, and danced until late in the evening, and at one point in the evening I looked out over the city and knew that I would remember that moment for the rest of my life.
Seek experiences like this. It doesn’t have to be in Nepal. It could be the fourth of July in Florence, Colorado. Watch the parade march down Main Street, and introduce yourself to some of the kind people in town. They most likely work at the Federal Supermax, so they’ll have some fascinating stories to tell.
Who will you meet this year?
4. Try a new mode of travel
This might be a difficult one for avid travelers. We think we’ve tried it all. I rented a motorbike and drove it on dirt roads and busy city streets in southern Thailand. I’ve taken ferries in Seattle, San Francisco, Thailand, New York, and Costa Rica. I spent five-days on a fishing boat turned live-aboard in the Andaman Sea. I’ve ridden rickety buses in nearly a dozen countries. I took trains through a good chunk of Europe, Morocco, Thailand, and the East and West Coasts. I bicycled on a narrow path through the rainforest on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica.
But guess what? I’ve never been on a cruise ship. Never. I’ve never driven a Segway through downtown Denver. Nerdy, but awesome. I’ve never taken a horse-drawn carriage in the Plaza in Kansas City. I’ve never been on a rafting trip.
There is always something new to try, you just have to spend some time thinking about less-traditional forms of transportation.
What mode of travel will you try in 2015?
5. Buy a smaller suitcase–and use it
Yes, I’m looking at you. Most of us have a serious over-packing problem. I’ve fluctuated between over-packing and under-packing, and there is definitely a sweet spot.
Recently I took a three-day trip to Phoenix, Arizona and in my giant suitcase I packed three pairs of shoes and an obscene amount of clothing. Why? There is no good reason, and frankly I’m ashamed.
On the other hand, when I was in Costa Rica for two weeks I decided to take a very small backpack–the kind that fits under your seat on the airplane. I had the pants I was wearing, one pair of shorts, a couple tank tops, my swimsuit, a few pairs of underwear, and no shoes but the ones on my feet. It was all well and good until I realized how much time I was spending washing my clothes, which were never really dry, with a bar of soap in a communal sink. Gross and weird.
You don’t have to go that extreme, but consider buying a smaller suitcase. You think your rolling bag is small enough? You can go smaller. Most hotels have laundry service, and if they don’t it’s always interesting to check out a laundromat in a new city or country. I enjoyed sitting in a laundromat in Barcelona, watching people walk by outside as I waited for my clothes to dry. It forces you to slow down a bit and notice the city around you instead of rushing from one tourist trap to another.
I used to have a much beloved t-shirt with the phrase “Listen and Travel Lightly” on it. More commonly this is phrased “Listen and Tread Lightly,” but I really like the version I had. Don’t worry that you won’t have just the right thing from home available to you at any time; instead, listen, observe, immerse yourself in your travels, and let go of some of the stuff you normally rely so heavily on. You can leave that fourth pair of shoes at home. Really, you can.
Will you commit to taking less stuff with you on your travels?
I’ve been very self-indulgent in this post, remembering my travels with an intense longing as I plan 2015. While I might not be able to spend three weeks in Vienna or take a train across Mongolia, I resolve to go somewhere new, eat some new food, get to know a few locals, try a new mode of transportation, and travel lightly.
Are these resolutions you can keep? How have you done these things in the past? Tell us in the comments below, or hit us up on Facebook and share your travel stories, dreams, and resolutions for 2015.
