My Biggest Past Travel Weaknesses
If you have a strong weakness, make it your strength. – Janesh Vaidya
Since I recently confessed what I learned from travel blogging over the years, I thought, why not take an honest look on past trips and come to terms with weaknesses.
Because awareness is the first step. When you acknowledge and accept your weaknesses, don’t hide from them or feel a need to hide them from others, you’re one step closer to freedom.
No matter if I traveled in Sweden or abroad, my weaknesses remained the same. Fortunately shopping for clothes stopped being an issue when I realized I rather collect experiences than jeans or dresses.
Nice Hotels
I didn’t stay much in hotels growing up. Ski holidays were spent in winter cottages, apartments or house rentals. Our charter trips to the Canary Islands and Greece included humble two or three-star hotels without pool.
At 19 I first stayed in a hotel I’d booked on my own, a mediocre Holiday Inn with my co-workers Shana and Heather the night before we visited Cedar Point amusement park. My next hotel experience, a cramped twin room with shared toilets/showers in Wolcott Hotel in New York, made no lasting impression either.
Then, after days of hostel stays, Shana and I found an Expedia deal on a Times Square hotel and ended up on the 22nd floor. I stood by the window for minutes and admired the view.
Next year my love for hotels grew stronger during a solo trip to Salzburg. I’d booked a single room at a family hotel but because of a water leak they had booked me into their partner hotel, a four-star Best Western near the Mirabell Palace and gardens, at no extra cost. I’d never had a double room or such a luxurious hotel room all to myself before. And I really liked it. So much that I got a weakness for nice hotels.
With a penchant for last-minute travel I usually look for somewhere to stay upon arrival, making it more likely I let my ego-based weakness rule and choose one of the nicest and most convenient options. While there’s nothing wrong with fancy-looking hotels when I have the budget and savings to afford it, such choices won’t work in the long run otherwise.
How to win over the weakness?
1. Book accommodation before departure to prevent impulsive, expensive hotel stays.
2. Research available, affordable options before arrival and bring a map to avoid choosing the first best hotel I see.
3. Keep my last-minute style of travel and don’t stop looking until I find a budget-friendly place to call it a night.
Food
Ever since I remember I have loved food. I have a memory of an evening at a restaurant in Dienten, Austria, at age 10. After finishing my meal of steak with rice and sauce plus bread plus dessert I saw that the dad in the family we traveled with hadn’t even touched one of his dishes. After politely asking if I could take it, a couple of persons in our group laughed and asked how I had room for everything.
If the food is good, overeating can be an issue for me. Not always but more than occassionally and sometimes. Enough times that it counts as a weakness.
For the sake of the animals, the environment and my health I turned vegetarian at age 14. Apart from a weak moment at McDonalds, where I ordered ChickenMcNuggets instead of the veggie burger (not a proud decision), I haven’t eaten any animal meat since. From the age of 17 I was vegan on and off until late 2011, when I managed to stay vegan for about a year. Until I traveled to Thailand and couldn’t resist banana pancakes.
Even though my inner beliefs are consistent with a vegan lifestyle, I’ve had a tendency to turn vegetarian again once I leave Sweden and travel abroad. Partly because of temptation of yummy sounding vegetarian food. And partly because staying vegan when you travel can be challenging on many levels.
Eating healthy all the time also presents a challenge. While I hadn’t eaten white bread for months in Sweden, I made an exception during one breakfast in Thailand.
So, when it comes to food, my weaknesses are overeating, eating vegetarian food instead of staying vegan, and eating less healthy foods.
How to win over the weakness?
1. Eat smaller portions several times a day (instead of large portions less often), and learn how to truly savor every bite to avoid eating too much.
2. Stay vegan as much as possible and give myself permission to eat vegetarian food if that is the only option available or what I feel like eating.
3. Focus on fruit and wholesome, plant-based food and practise moderation with unhealthy food and sweet desserts.
Chocolate
Since I first tasted chocolate as a kid it has been a life-long, devoted love affair. Sugary milk chocolate. Mud cakes. Chocolate cakes. Brownies. Chocolate ice cream. Dark chocolate. White chocolate. Chocolate filled with nuts, caramel, berries, sea salt, liquorice… (the options are seemingly endless).
My relationship with chocolate never turned long-distance because during the periods I didn’t eat sugar I indulged in raw chocolate sweetened with agave or dried coconut-blossom nectar.
No matter my whereabouts I found my chocolate-fix. Pan au chocolat (chocolate-filled croissants) in France. Lindt chocolate in Switzerland. Chocolatiers in London. Handmade $2 pralines from Swedish chocolate shops.
How to win over the weakness?
1. Limit chocolate-intake to one day a week or weekends.
2. Separate from chocolate forever.
3. ????
Have you ever broken a travel budget? What are your biggest weaknesses when you travel?
