Welcome

Friends,

I love the Doctor Seuss quote at the end of today’s story, which admittedly took a different direction than the one I anticipated when I began writing.

Putting trips together can be difficult (the really great kind, at least). In today’s column, we are talking about the foundation of great trips. I hope to share more ideas soon—so more on that later.

Let’s get going.

Links

Rebrand and new magazine for luxury travel company Abercrombie & Kent.

Southwest cuts points earning by 60% on lowest fares, effective immediately.

Story

Planning where to travel can sometimes feel maddening to me. There are so many options (the world is huge), and multiple layers of limitation (time, money, etc.). You can go anywhere, but you cannot go everywhere (at least not all at the same time).

What helps me is to build a trip around a single idea.

I recognize this reads like an oversimplification. But the process helps me to conceptually articulate a simple why for a given trip and, as Stephen Covey puts it, “begin with the end in mind”.

This can be anything—from taking a special flight to staying at a new hotel to visiting a specific destination—but it needs to be a single idea that can be articulated. While simple, it tactically helps pull assorted experiences into a single narrative. It also filters down all the available options.

The real secret here becomes focusing your ideas and efforts on others. For me, my best trips have been built around specific experiences for people I love. This starts to read romantically, and that is kind of the point.

More than anything, travel is a break—a sense of the new—from the blessed rhythms of ordinary life. And when we enter into that new with others to give them something, it gives everyone exponentially more than if you just went it alone.

There is a real place for solo travel: I am not speaking against that. Often solo travel actually re-shapes how you engage with others when you return home again. In all of this, I am encouraging the creation of a narrative for your travels and recognizing that narratives are generally stronger with multiple characters.

You cannot control how other people will respond to things, and to be sure that leads to disappointment. Traveling with and for others is still deeply worthwhile.

Freeing others to respond as they will to the ups/downs of travel frees everyone up, and (for me at least) puts my mind in a posture to receive at large—versus trying to control every painstaking detail, which is at best exhausting.

There is a life lesson in all of this, too.

So, build trips inspired by others (I’ll start sharing more 'stories' here) and envision the delight of those joining you on the journey. Give the trip purpose by articulating it. And get going.

Big Picture: As Dr. Seuss says, 'It’s fun to have fun, but you have to know how'. Travel is best planned with an end in mind, and in my experience that end is richest when it is for those you love.

Happy flying.

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Remember, this life you are living has meaning. Be well today.

-Tommy