The Difficulties of Travel Planning

Friday 18 January 2013

Map via Etsy Vendor Vassi Slavova

If you ask any expat what the best part of living overseas is, the overwhelming majority will mention the ability to travel and it's definitely one of the things I'm most thankful for.  As I looked back on 2012 and all of the places we were able to visit, I wondered how we could possibly compete in 2013.

The last half of 2012 was jam packed for us - we moved from Gabon to Norway, I spent a couple of weeks in Canada, we went to Belgium and then to Houston for 2 weeks before returning and visiting Berlin and Prague and then jumping on a plane home for the holidays.  To be completely honest, I hadn't even started to think about trips for the new year until we returned last week and I had a moment to breath.  I started to see others mapping out their travel plans and I literally had nothing.  I didn't have locations in mind, we hadn't set aside any time off and I hadn't even began to ponder it.

I feel an enormous amount of pressure to see and experience as much as we can while we're living in Europe.  I read blogs and travel articles and they give me a million ideas of places to go and then I speak to readers and friends who tell me, 'You absolutely must add ______ to your list" and believe you, me - I want to see EVERYTHING.  Before I know it, I've got a massive list of cities and countries and knowing that we are living so close to so many great places, I feel like this is the time to travel.

Unfortunately, it's not quite as easy as it looks.

First of all, Joe works.  (And he works A LOT.)  It's the entire reason we are here in the first place.  He gets 20 holiday days every year - no different than if he was working in Canada.  Last year, we had an additional 2 weeks as compensation for living in Gabon.  This year we're back down to 20 days.  I know that compared to some, 20 days seem reasonable (and it sort of is) but it's quite hard to balance travel time and trips home.  We live quite far from our families and we try to make a point of coming home once a year but because it's so far, it has to be at least 2 weeks to be worthwhile.  After we factor that out, we're down to 10 days.

Surprisingly enough, Norway does not have many public holidays.  (Perhaps this is not an issue to the average Norwegian as they get 5 weeks of paid vacation time every year.)  In Canada, we were accustomed to 1 statutory holiday per month (except June and March/April depending on Easter) with a total of 12 per year.  Norway has holidays for Easter and 3 in May but then NOTHING until Christmas.  This means, we can't rely on public holidays for long weekends and this year, Joe's colleague has taken Easter & Christmas for trips home meaning we have to be in Norway.

Holiday time aside, it's not as convenient to travel from Stavanger as one might expect.  Norway isn't part of mainland Europe so we generally have to travel by plane.  Hopping on a short, cheap train isn't really a possibility for us and because we're in Stavanger, as opposed to a main centre, it generally means we need to take 2 flights to arrive at any destination aside from London, Amsterdam and Frankfurt.  This most definitely impacts the cost and time of travel making it more difficult to take off Friday after Joe's done work and return Sunday night so that he's ready first thing Monday morning.

This past weekend, Joe and I pulled up google maps to start making plans.  We jotted down the cities we most wanted to visit and which would be feasible for weekend trips.  We looked between the calendar, our list and the map of Europe when it became blatantly obvious that we just can't do it all.  We want to see as much as possible but we also want quality time in those cities instead of rushing in and out in a blur.  This is difficult for me - balancing my wants and all of the possibilities with the time we have available and the enormous amount of pressure I put on myself to take full advantage of our time in Europe.

So now comes the time where we take this massive list and whittle it down to something that is manageable; I try to dismantle the self-imposed expectations; We'll maximize the 10 days we have and I'll remember that the travels that I will get to do this year are valuable, exciting and certainly more than many people get to experience.

How do you manage your travel plans within your constraints?

(Side note: Perhaps I should start a petition within Joe's company - we must all feel this way? Right?)

20 comments:

  1. I totally hear you on this - and I touched on it a little bit in my recent guest post for Jenna - and I think that a lot of the reason that expats feel like they have to see everything is because they're told they MUST see x, y, and z while they're over there and there have to take advantage of blah blah blah. yes, you're living a great opportunity, but it's also REAL LIFE (long work hours and all) and you don't need that kind of pressure!

    I love the idea of weekend trips. You don't have to leave the country or even the area to do something fun and different if you really do feel like you need to get out of town. Sometimes getting to know your new town really really really well is just as satisfying :)

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  2. Geesh that's not a lot of time for stat holidays is it?! Before I'd even moved to the UK, I'd written down the dates of all the long weekends for the year! I find a very different problem to yours....so many places to go and see but no one to do it with! I see all these GroupOn holidays and deals but they're all for two and it's just me. I suppose I could take them alone but it's not as fun by yourself! I'm wanting to to Italy, Prague, France, Amsterdam, maybe Greece, maybe Germany, Spain, Portugal.....sooo many things and like you, I feel I have to take advantage while I'm living here!

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  3. Totally get you - I don't even know what I'd do if I were working in the US and only had 15 of so vacation days. My 30 in Germany is really difficult, and the public holidays here seem quite limited, too. It's especially hard when lots of people want to visit, because as much as I want to spend time with them, I cannot use all my vacation days either. I try my best to escape for the weekend, but it always limits the distance and opportunities with budget airlines.

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  4. My husband and I just moved to the Frankfurt area and are facing this same dilemma now. When planning our trips we have decided to always ask ourselves, "are we doing this to fulfill a deep seeded desire to see/experience something, or are we doing this to cross it off the list and have a 'been there done that' attitude?"

    Ultimately, our travels are always more meaningful when we go places that are special to us by choice, not because someone else told us it was a must see. When you're seeing the things you want to, you can't feel like you didn't take advantage of your opportunity. Good luck to you!

    http://hisherstories.blogspot.de/

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    1. "Are we doing this to fulfill a deep seeded desire to see/experience something?"

      I quite like that!

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  5. We're just starting to face this (we've done a lot of the easy to reach destinations from Malta now and it's starting to get more complicated and expensive). I guess the only way to combat it is to explore a lot close to home. And hope for 5 week vacations to be mandated globally!

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  6. Could (would) you consider traveling with friends/family to see more since Joe isn't able to take off much time?

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    1. I often do spend more time in Canada than Joe does every year because I obviously don't have work commitments and there is potential to do a bit of traveling with friends however, that is difficult territory. Obviously, we're a partnership and it's not exactly fair for him to be working to pay all of the bills and then not be able to enjoy the travel with me. I imagine some resentment would build if I was jetting off all around Europe and he was working not to mention that he also wants to see all of these places too!

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    2. Right. Makes sense! Might be fun to just do a girls' weekend or something every now and again and do more major trips with Joe when he has the chance to!

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  7. I'm not an expat by any means, but just trying to fit in travel around the States can sometimes be difficult. I mean, I CAN do New York in a weekend trip, but holy geez, that's an exhausting time crunched trip. I'm planning one big trip this year, and then the remainder of my 17 days I'm offered by my company for time off will be used doing extended weekend trips or time off during the holidays.

    What cities are on the top of your list to see?

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  8. I totally hear you. My fiancee plays hockey in Alaska, while I work at the local zoo. You can't live in Alaska and not explore, but we have huge issues with when we can do it. His hockey season runs September to May, 7 days a week, but has the summer off. Whereas, my busy time at work is the summer. Safe to say, we jam pack the weekends we have!

    www.intothealaskanwild.blogspot.com

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  9. I never thought of how Norway isn't connected to the rest of Europe. I just always think that if you're in Europe it's so easy to travel around. We're in the same boat since we can't travel by land anywhere around us so it makes traveling a little less convenient but we try to make the most out of our four weeks that we have a year. (i'm by no means complaining about this one! we are so blessed to have more than the standard two weeks a year) hopefully you get to travel more than you think you will this year!

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  10. When we were living abroad we took a ton of weekend trips. B couldn't get away during the week because of work, so we tried to jam everything into a couple of days. It worked, but was difficult!

    Rachel

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  11. This I totally understand! I try to avoid telling people they "HAVE TO" go somewhere/do something (though it's hard when you have such positive experiences you want to share!)

    We get pretty isolated in the winter so flying is our only safe option, and I'm sure you understand the issues with air travel in Canada.... $$$ ;)

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  12. p.s LOVE that Canada has a public holiday almost every month!!!!

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    1. Isn't it nice?!

      Air travel in Canada is expensive --- it's often cheaper to fly to Europe than it is to fly to the East coast.

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  13. sotry of my life girl... well my spain life at least.. i have 6 months left and I HAVE to see everything! thankfully spain has quite a few 3 days weekends plus i get spring break so i am maxing out my time. but really 6 months or 5 years... there is no way i would be able to go and see everything i would want to see...

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  14. My first reaction after I read this post was 'story of my life girl,' and I see Miss Nicole beat me to the chase haha! I'm funnily enough going through the same thing right now and I'm not even in Europe yet! I have one whole month plus two months of weekend trips (though there's no way I'll be going away every or even every other weekend - a girl can dream though!!) and I'm seriously having a hard time narrowing down the list! Maybe I'll have a better idea once summer approaches, but then I could very well be in the same boat I am now! Ahh the life of the travel obsessed :)

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  15. have you considered taking day (or even an overnight) trips by yourself to nearby areas of interest around stavanger while joe is at work? i understand how it is to be on both ends of this (being the working partner or the one who has a lot of free time). i know solo travel isn't quite the same without someone to share it with, but perhaps take this time to get to know the surrounding isles and areas near you? there's gotta be some awesome fjords there to check out on the west coast!

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    1. Hi Cynthia - we do quite a few day trips in and around Stavanger and as the weather gets better, we have more weekend trips planned. Traveling within Norway is not really the problem as we can do that quite easily on normal weekends - it's the traveling Europe while we're here that is difficult to schedule.

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