Travel Expectations: How to Turn Disappointments into Joyful Adventures

Ever felt let down by a travel destination that didn't match the vibrant photos you saw online? You're not alone. I share my personal experience at Rainbow Mountain in Peru, where reality didn't quite live up to my expectations. Let's explore how setting realistic expectations and maintaining a sense of curiosity can transform these moments into opportunities for unexpected joy. With practical tips on flexibility and research, I'll guide you on how to navigate the logistical challenges of travel while keeping an open mind for serendipitous adventures.

Travel can lead to disappointment when expectations overshoot reality. By approaching travel with curiosity, flexibility, and presence, you can cultivate richer experiences that transcend typical social media narratives.

• Discusses personal travel disappointments and their causes
• Encourages embracing a childlike mindset when approaching new destinations
• Stresses the importance of flexibility to allow for spontaneous experiences
• Highlights the value of researching destinations to set realistic expectations
• Advises against making comparisons based on social media portrayals of travel
• Promotes using all five senses to enrich the travel experience
• Emphasizes focusing on positive experiences and the journey rather than visual perfection

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Chapters

• 0:00 Travel Tips to Avoid Disappointment
• 10:59 Appreciating the Experience of Travel

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Well, sisters, have you ever traveled somewhere and arrived and found yourself rather disappointed, or it just didn't meet the expectations that you had drummed up in your brain? We're going to talk about that topic today and ways to sort of avoid that disappointment that you might experience due to these expectations that we place on ourselves and on our travels. Welcome to Solo Travel Adventures for Women 50 and Older. I'm Cheryl S, your host, solo travel advocate, freedom traveler and coach. This is your passport to adventure. Have you ever found yourself picking a destination based upon, maybe, a picture you saw on the internet or a social media post or reel from a travel influencer and you thought I need to go there. And so you book your flight, you plan everything, you get there, only to find yourself disappointed? Well, I think we all tend to fall prey to that. I know I have fallen prey to that, and one example I can give you is when I went to Peru. We walked the Inca trail, we saw Machu Picchu, but while we were there, we decided last minute I had seen pictures of Rainbow Mountain. People had mentioned it to me. Again, there is this hype. You know you may have experienced that, maybe not just with travel, but with, maybe, a movie. People hype up a movie and then you get there and you're completely disappointed because you have these huge expectations. Well, this happened to me at Rainbow Mountain, because I later find out that the pictures that you often see on the internet of Rainbow Mountain have been doctored up. Let's say Mountain have been doctored up, let's say brightened up through, you know, maybe Photoshop or something like that, to appear more vibrant in their colors. And yes, that part was somewhat disappointing when I got to the top, but the memories of actually getting to the top and coming back down with my son are actually what I remember most about that particular experience.

Speaker 1: 2:28

But, yes, there can be times when we find ourselves rather disappointed. And why is that? Well, because we have these hyped up expectations of what a place is going to look like, what it's going to feel like when we get there. And that's just one example of my, one of my travel experiences that have not quite, you know, hit the mark. They've left me a little disappointed and I wanted to go over, like why is that? You know, why do we, or how can we avoid that? Well, one reason is we do we go in with these huge pictures, we have this attitude of what it should be like, and when we get there it doesn't match All right. So we've set these unrealistic expectations and so that's one thing that we could avoid as we are preparing for a trip to avoid that high expectations and to look at it and approach your trip or your travels more like a first time you know, never seeing anything on the internet although that's hard to avoid but from new eyes, like a child, seeing Christmas for the first time or seeing snow for the first time, and having that wonderment, that curiosity, will definitely help avoid some of that unrealistic expectations that we often place on a trip that we've planned. We've spent so much time planning.

Speaker 1: 4:05

And so the other thing you can also do in your travels I always talk about this because I feel number two be flexible in, you know, your travels, because that's where you're allowing space for interesting things to happen or things you weren't expecting to surprise you right. So always build in that space for that and be flexible. Even though you may have an itinerary planned out, make sure you have, you know, allowed space or time to, you know. Just be in a space and just enjoy it and experience it as it is meant to be experienced like a first timer. Third thing you can do is do some research, but just so you know what to expect. For example, maybe you arrive in Paris and had not done your research to discover that for the Louvre, for example, you needed to purchase tickets at a time Same with the Eiffel Tower, like these are things that would be nice to know beforehand. Or you know, reading up or researching, okay, what is the typical wait time to see such and such. You know what should I expect there? Because going in knowing that information will prevent you from being frustrated by the circumstances, and so that would be a third thing to help you avoid some disappointment from your expectations.

Speaker 1: 5:41

Number four don't compare yourself to others, especially not to what you see on social media, especially from those travel influencers. If you really see behind the scenes, you often don't see what really is going on, or how they might actually be erasing things in the background, or how many shots they actually took to get this perfect, beautiful, um you know image that you were looking at and thinking, oh, I want to go there. So do not compare, um, what other people have experienced in that particular place that you are traveling to, because you, you are a different person than them. You come in with different experiences, different backgrounds and different attitudes and, you know, just don't compare how they experienced it versus how you will experience it. And again, that's that whole, you know, going in with fresh eyes and curiosity.

Speaker 1: 6:43

Number five be present in the moment. So I had this wonderful quote that I actually really, um, I I love because it I think it really capsulizes what I'm talking about here. Um, it's by Henry Miller and it says one's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things. So when I talk about being in the present moment, I would encourage you to see things differently while you are in that space. Some examples might be imagine you are a photographer and you're seeing through this lens to capture an image or perspective that no one else sees, that you might miss if you were just passing by. And one of my favorite photographers is Ansel Adams, and he has captured so many things that you know, even though I've been to many of these national. He's got a great book on national parks and other landscapes and many of us have seen them, but we haven't captured or seen it in the way that he has seen it or captured it. So, you know, maybe imagine for a moment while you're sitting or in a city, somewhere. Imagine you're a photographer, you're trying to capture something that other people might not have stopped to see.

Speaker 1: 8:09

You can also use all five senses. Now there's a great explorer from the 19th century, james Holman, and in 1857, he actually died, being known as the most traveled explorer in world history at that time. Now, what makes this extraordinary is that he was blind, and so I love the idea of using all five senses. So you know, he was had heightened. As we know, when someone's blind, they have heightened awareness in their smell, their taste, their hearing is heightened because they lack the ability to see, which is what we mostly rely on.

Speaker 1: 8:51

When we go someplace, we just see an image. We see a place for what it's worth on the surface. We don't look at it or experience it wholly. And so if you're struggling to use your five senses, one way that you can really experience a place and again I want to reference, like I think of Anthony Bourdain as someone who, when he traveled, he experienced the culture with all five senses, in my, in my opinion and so to get to that place, you may want to actually think in reverse meaning. You might ask the question where might I go for the most intriguing smell? Now you might need to ask some locals to help you with this. Where might you find the most delicious taste in this area? Are there unique textures that might be indicative of this culture that you could touch, maybe going to a market and experiencing through textures? What are the sounds of that culture that you could go and experience? So this is another way to change your expectations, because these are ways to experience a place, a travel destination that maybe other people have not explained or shared with you. Like you said, he's just seeing pictures, so you're basing it off that, and then I would say another way to look at things differently and to really truly experience and be present as I was talking about being present in the moment is to actually just sit in the space and sit there and observe, not to see the surface, what is obvious, but see if there's something more, notice the details, and that will bring you a whole different experience and change your perspective of what your expectations were or would have been, and I think the final way to avoid disappointment from your travel expectations.

Speaker 1: 10:59

Number six is to really focus on the positive. And this, of course, is just having that attitude, as I mentioned earlier, of being curious and looking at things through a different lens, through the eyes of maybe a child, for the first time, and understanding that it's more than just a picture when you travel. Yes, those are lovely and they're beautiful to put on social media, but if you've traveled a bit, you know it's more than that. Travel is more than just taking a picture to post on Instagram. It's an experience that needs to be experienced, as I mentioned, with all five senses and I hope that when you approach your next trip and you've done your research, you've set some realistic expectations and you've done your research you've set some realistic expectations that when you get there, you're not comparing your experience or the images you might have seen before you got there with what you are experiencing, because in my example of the Rainbow Mountain, it was actually more about that journey getting up the Rainbow Mountain that brings back.

Speaker 1: 12:20

Every time I think about it, I kind of laugh and it's very a warm memory for me, and it was the experience itself, not the view, although the view was lovely and you feel accomplished when you get up there, but it was things along the way.

Speaker 1: 12:42

You know whether it was.

Speaker 1: 12:44

You know we did ride a donkey a little partway up and you know having that physical experience there, or laughing at myself or laughing at my son, and how much we were struggling, um, you know, having that experience to actually um touch a llama, um, at the top of the mountain, just you know, being that close to an animal, it was just all, very, um, the experience itself was more important, important than the expectations of this picture that I saw on the internet that caused me to to decide to go to Rainbow Mountain.

Speaker 1: 13:27

But it was so much more and I hope that when you approach again your travels, all your travels, that you will also see your travels through a different lens and avoid this disappointment, because you know it's all really about how we approach our trip.

Speaker 1: 13:47

You know, as I said in point number six, you know, focusing on the positive, even though it might've been, you know, one day in the Camino it just rained all day, and so for me, trying to look at the positive of that was okay. Well, it gave me the opportunity because that day I decided I would take a train for part of the part of the trail to cut off some time, and had a wonderful train ride, enjoyed it and the sun came out at the end. So it all turned out good, and so focusing on the positive is really going to help you avoid in addition to those other things I mentioned avoid disappointment from these expectations we place on ourselves and we place on what we feel this trip should be like. I hope you will take those to heart so that you can fully embody your next trip with all five senses and have good memories in a different way that can't be captured in pictures.