Every traveler knows the feeling of desperately needing someone to turn to. In our Women Who Travel advice column, we'll be answering questions from our Facebook group members, readers, podcast listeners, newsletter subscribers, and travelers. Have a question? We'd love to hear from you. Email us at womenwhotravel@cntraveler.com.
Dear Women Who Travel,
Like most people, I have spent the past year dreaming about the day I get to travel again. Now, with vaccines rolling out, I'm finally letting myself get excited about the prospect of the world slowly opening up, but I've also found myself feeling overwhelmed—not by the idea of getting back out there, but by the expectations others are already placing on me.
In total I have three bachelorettes and four weddings to attend before the end of 2021, almost all of which will require booking flights and accommodation out of my own pocket. I'm already worried that by RSVPing yes to all of them, I'm losing the opportunity to spend my limited vacation days and income on the trips that I am desperate to take for myself. Yes, I want to celebrate my friends. But I also want to travel on my terms, especially after a year when I've had so little control over, well, anything. How do I prioritize what I want to do without hurting my friends, or missing out on some of their happiest moments? Is that even possible?
—Overwhelmed and I haven't even left home yet
Dear Overwhelmed Traveler,
You have hit on such a shared experience here—after a year of holding our breath and visualizing the moment when we finally can burst out the gates and travel again, so many of us have been slapped with reality checks. I think that in missing travel over the past year, we've romanticized it a bit.
Sure, the act of dreaming of a place, booking a flight, and having the freedom to explore every nook and cranny of it is something I won't take for granted again. But it's easy to forget all the other types of trips that made up our travel lives and pulled at our time. There were always obligations, be they weddings, visits home for the holidays, or work trips. That's not to say those aren't important things I want to do, but as they mount against finite banks of time and money, you quickly have to start weighing which trips are more (and less) important.
From conversations with other women, I can guarantee you aren't the only one realizing this. I asked our Women Who Travel community via Instagram for their own experiences, and a flood of concerns came in. For some, the tension largely comes from a flurry of postponed events and weddings filling up their calendars, like you're dealing with. For others, there are less formal obligations at play; rather, expectations by family and loved ones that rounds of visits and get togethers will come before any other trip.