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New Year, New Goals: A Guide to Setting Travel Resolutions in 2024
Step into 2024 with a fresh perspective and a world of possibilities waiting to be explored. As you pen down your travel resolutions for the year, remember that every journey starts with a single step, and there's no better time to take that step than now.
As we look back on our travels from 2023, we are feeling proud of where we have been and how many of our goals we have accomplished. And it leaves us hungry for more adventure!
Reflecting on Past Travel Experiences
Before delving into the wonders that await us in the coming year, take a moment to reminisce about the adventures that have shaped you. Reflect on the awe-inspiring landscapes, the immersive cultural encounters, and the moments that left an indelible mark.
Here are a few ways to reflect on your past experiences:
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Rekindle Memories Through Your Travel Journal: Rediscover your adventures, emotions, and observations through the pages
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Review Photographs and Mementos: Go through your photographs, souvenirs, and mementos to trigger memories and emotions associated with your travel experiences.
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Recall Significant Moments: Recall the standout moments of your trip that left a lasting impression, whether they were interactions with locals, breathtaking landscapes, or unique cultural experiences.
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Assess Challenges and Learning: Reflect on the challenges you faced during the trip, such as language barriers or adapting to a different lifestyle. Evaluate how you overcame these challenges and what you learned from them.
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Evaluate Travel Preferences: Determine what aspects of the trip you particularly enjoyed and what didn't meet your expectations. This reflection can help you refine your travel preferences for future trips.
Reflection on past travel experiences can not only help you cherish the memories but also provide valuable insights for personal growth and future travel planning.
Why It’s Important To Set New Year Travel Resolutions
Despite their positive intentions, new year resolutions often get a bad rap. This is because statistically, 4 out of 5 resolution setters will break theirs at some point, and 1/3 won’t even make it to the end of January!
But don't worry, when it comes to travel resolutions, we can help you beat the odds!
By writing down our goals or recording them visually, we become 42% more likely to achieve them. And if we share them with others, our odds are raised by another 65%! This is even more powerful when we are intentional with the language we use. Instead of, “I would like to visit Iceland in the wintertime,” we can say, “I will visit Iceland next winter.”
Before we know it, these resolutions aren’t just goals. They are plans!
As we feel pride and accomplishment each time we check off one of our resolutions, we feel motivated to keep working our way down the list! By the time NYE rolls around again, we will feel confident in creating even bigger and better resolutions!
Here are a few of our favorite ways to visualize our resolutions:
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Write a good ol’ fashioned list and hang it somewhere we can see it everyday.
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Create a vision board using photos of destinations and experiences we want to make happen this year.
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Our personal favorite – pin our dream destinations on a push pin travel map!
How to Determine Your New Year Travel Resolutions
When it comes to setting any type of goals, there is a sweet spot between setting targets that are too hefty or too simple.
We recommend a hearty brainstorming session to start. Write down any travel goal that comes to mind – we will narrow them down later!
Once we have a list of all of the experiences and destinations that we crave the most, we can rank them to find out exactly what we should aim to accomplish in the new year. We should ask ourselves questions like:
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Which of the destinations are closest to me?
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Which trip is the least expensive?
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Which trip would be the easiest for me to take right now?
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If I could visit just one of these places in my lifetime, which one would I choose?
We can use our answers to these questions to rank our goals and ultimately decide which we want to commit to this year.
Whatever New Year travel resolutions we choose, it’s important to be realistic! By setting goals that we feel are within reach, we can avoid feeling discouraged once it’s time to put them into motion. And each target we hit will motivate us to go bigger next time!
Once we narrow down 5 or 10 goals, the next step to reaching them is to identify anything that may be standing in our way from achieving them. It’s easy to come up with excuses for why we can’t book that flight, or hike that trail.
Once we come up with our list of excuses, we can turn them into a plan! For example:
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I will create a budget plan to save the money I need to take this trip.
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I will plan my time off work in advance to make it a priority to recharge.
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I will find a tour company that caters to solo travelers if I can’t find a travel companion and don’t want to go solo.
Once we have perfected our list of New Year travel resolutions, it’s time for the most exciting part: making plans to turn these dreams into reality!
Every amazing journey begins with the very first step, and it’s time to take ours!
Determine which goal you want to hit first, and then do whatever it takes to start the process. Book the flight, create the budget, or sign up for a camping permit if one of the national parks made the list (some are only available through a lottery system due to high demand, so sign up ASAP).
How to Stay Motivated Every Step of the Way
We believe that every step in the process of fulfilling our New Year travel resolutions deserves celebration!
Each time we save up the money, book the flight or hotel, or plan the itinerary that will get us to our goal, we should take time to reflect and celebrate the work we put in to bring us that much closer to our goal, and the amazing experiences we are making happen for ourselves.
It’s important to keep this energy as we complete our resolutions, too! After each trip, we must commemorate our special memories so that we remember how amazing it feels to accomplish our goals and stay motivated for the next one!
When all is said and done, all we have is our memories. By being intentional with our New Year travel goals and committing to making each year better than the one before, we will one day be so grateful to ourselves as we cherish all of these precious moments.
