One of the biggest difficulties for a traveler is choose the destination for the next trip. We spend hours, sometimes days staring at the globe, amazed every time at how big it is and think about how many countries we would still like to visit, more and more aware that making a choice is a really complicated undertaking.
Someone even turns the globe around, closes their eyes and points the finger that irremediably points to a more or less indefinite point in the center of the Pacific Ocean. No, this way of choosing a destination just doesn't work.
How to choose the destination for the next trip?
One of the things I really never get to do is to to plan and this is also reflected in the choice of the new trip. It usually happens to me that if I fixate on wanting at all costs to decide where to go and enter the loop of thinking about which destination, I can hardly ever get out of it and this creates a crazy stress: I therefore avoid thinking and generally abandon myself. to inspiration. I know, maybe I read an article on the internet or I see a movie at the cinema and if I spend all night with the fire inside without closing an eye thinking about what I have read or seen the first thing I do in the morning as soon as I jump out of bed is to connect to the internet and look for the plane ticket. And if I find it goodbye, I'll buy it. Then I think about the consequences and in the following days I go to beg my boss to give me vacation.
This happened to me when I looked for flights to Iran. I was at BIT 2015, a tourism fair that takes place every year in Milan and I was wandering among the various stands of the countries looking for that inspiration which, however, did not reach me. Everywhere I saw photographs of beautiful places, but none that managed to ignite that particular spark until I happened to be in front of the Iran stand on which there was a large sign: Iran, travel to ancient Persia. And there, standing dazed in the midst of thousands of people who passed me, I fell in love.
Needless to say, the next day I had the tickets in my pocket and the heart beating wildly.
Other times it happened to me to choose a destination because in some of my crazy raids in the world of the net I ran into some plane tickets at exceptional prices, as for example in the case of Japan to 285 euros a / ro del Brazil at 330, but it happens quite rarely also because these tickets do not happen every day.
For the rest I admit that I spend most of my free time thinking about which countries in the world I would like to visit, what I would like to see, which people I would like to meet, in short, I am looking for a reason, something that can resemble a purpose suitable for occasion.
Meanwhile, one of the fundamental factors that should be taken into consideration is the time we have available. Once a person I met while traveling told me that time is the most precious thing we have and how to blame him? For this I believe that the time is one of the fundamental factors in the choice of the next destination: going to a place without having enough time to devote it does not do it justice and is exactly what I simply identify as the want to put a flag on the map, just to say I've been there.
Where to go?
For the rest other things affect me quite little. If, as I said, the fateful spark is triggered, it is impossible for me to give up that destination because maybe the interesting flights are in a period that is not suitable for weather conditions. I learned that magic can also be experienced under a monsoon. Indeed it was a monsoon that gave me a great lesson in life. I was standing under a toppia looking for a minimum of shelter when a few meters away a couple of boys came out under the pouring water with a bar of soap and with their faces illuminated by smiles they took a shower in the rain. Clothes while they were there, so they washed those too. For those without water at home, the monsoon is a blessing. It even rhymes.
Everything can be good or bad it just depends on which side you look at it. Here's what the monsoon taught me. And when the downpour was over, I was able to witness one of the clearest sunsets of my life.
Well once I have the tickets in my pocket it's time to prepare for the trip and this is the simplest thing for me because, as I said, I hardly ever plan anything. Maybe I buy the guide which is then irreparably opened for the first time when I step on the plane just to pass the hours of the flight.
The reason why I spend little time ad plan the travel before the flight is essentially that I am lazy and I don't want to bother like Cain looking for hotels for every seat, booking tours and bus tickets. I read something on the various blogs, little to tell the truth, just to get a rough idea of the things to see and not to go completely unprepared and generally I look for the hostel for the first night like this, always for the fact that I'm lazy , I don't have to bother trying to sleep as soon as I arrive, maybe after 20 hours of flight.
However, my way of doing it has negative sides and I do not recommend it to everyone because it irremediably means that the times are lengthened a lot, that many hours are lost to the search for the hostel in which to sleep or how to move or simply to understand how that country works and sometimes they even make you spend more (my Genoese heart bleeds for this) because it is not possible to take advantage of the hotel offers on some portals on the web. Patience of the rest I am a ' improvvisatrice.
Luckily in the world we are all different. There are those who need choose the destination for the next trip taking into account the weather conditions, the safety situation and a lot of other things and he is calm and happy only if the choice he makes reflects all these parameters. On the other hand, there are those who like me do not choose or rather abandon themselves to inspiration. I think the important thing is that the choice we make makes us feel good and gives us serenity, I don't understand why making an effort at all costs to choose la destinazione if we don't feel it is “ours”: in short, the important thing is to feel good, thousands of km away from the other side of the world as well as at home.
And what method do you use for choose the destination for your next trip?
