travel scary (noun)
An experience or situation encountered during travel that induces fear, anxiety, or discomfort due to potential risks, unfamiliar environments, or unsettling circumstances.
Most people have either heard or personally experienced a travel scary before. In the moment, they can be quite stressful. They’re typically unprecedented experiences that occur at inconvenient times, hence the scary. But we can overcome difficult cry-inducing obstacles. These are five things to take away from my travel scary in December 2023.
1. Be aware of weather conditions
When traveling in the northern hemisphere in the month of December, one can expect somewhat unideal weather conditions like cold temperatures and snow. However, coming from an American state that annually experiences freezing snowstorms, I believed that a certain level of extreme had to be reached before a city was shut down. This was my first mistake. The same cold weather practices used in the US are not always what’s used in Europe. So be aware of the weather conditions and consider how the local transportation will be affected.
2. Know potential alternatives
Going along with the first point, know potential alternative routes or methods of transportation. Preferably, this can be done when you’re researching and booking the original method and route. This can be especially helpful for trips where you have a strict timeline like we did. I did not do this and was forced to think on my feet the day of. I’m sure in my moment of stress searching I overlooked good potential alternatives that could’ve been more time and/or cost effective.
3. Have an emergency fund
Most people always travel with a certain budget in mind, both small and large. However, my travel scary taught me to always have a little more money stored for an emergency fund. I had to pay for an extra train and bus for me to get back home in time for my final exam. This was obviously not included in my original budget, and if I didn’t have the possibility to do this, I would have failed my class. So luckily, I have learned my lesson and recommend that you allocate a bit of money to an emergency fund even if it means you have to lower the trip budget. You will never know if you’ll have to use it and it’s better to have it and not use it than need it and not have it. Remember a good trip is not made by how much it costs but by the memories you make.
These next two takeaways might seem like a bit of a duh moment, but many people still either don’t do this or aren’t aware.
4. Buy the trip protection
I know, when you are on the checkout page, buying the trip protection doesn’t seem like a necessity but trust me, it can be a lifesaver. Nowadays most economy flights don’t include any flexibility for changing dates or cancellations. In the moment when booking, you’re obviously not planning on changing or missing your flight, but life happens. If it weren’t for the trip protection, we wouldn’t have received a refund for our cancelled flight. We weren’t eligible for a refund without this because technically they rescheduled us for an alternative flight the next day. However, because my final exam was the next morning, the alternative flight wasn’t an option for me. Therefore, the trip protection came in handy, and they refunded us.
5. Don’t plan trips around important dates
I knew about a month prior that my in-person final exam was going to be on that day. However, because my brother was visiting, I wanted to make the most of our time together. Usually booking a return flight to arrive the day before an important event would be enough, but this time, I was unlucky. The return flight was supposed to be nonstop and 1.5 hours long, so I thought there would be more than enough time. However, like most people, I never thought the flight, nonetheless two, would be cancelled. To get back home, I had to take a train and a bus which took much longer.
This trip was a weeklong, and I think I cried about five times throughout because of all the unexpected twists and turns. In the end, I arrived at my final exam on time and aced it. So now all of this is just a funny memory. . . not really.
xx,
Brimady