By Roxanne Reid
I don’t know about you, but I’m not a huge believer in making New Year’s resolutions I know I’ll break before the New Year’s bubbly and balloons have gone flat. Eat less chocolate? Ain’t gonna happen. Go on a round-the-world cruise? I don’t have the budget for that so it’s a dream, not an achievable resolution. But I can make small resolutions about how I plan to travel. Here are my 5 travel resolutions for 2014.
I don’t know about you, but I’m not a huge believer in making New Year’s resolutions I know I’ll break before the New Year’s bubbly and balloons have gone flat. Eat less chocolate? Ain’t gonna happen. Go on a round-the-world cruise? I don’t have the budget for that so it’s a dream, not an achievable resolution. But I can make small resolutions about how I plan to travel. Here are my 5 travel resolutions for 2014.
1. As a travel writer I'm often too focused on getting all the elements I need for the story, so one of my resolutions is to be more fully present in each moment. In 2013 one of the best moments was eating farm bread by candlelight in an unusual Karoo guesthouse.
I want to be present in every moment, like when we ate farm bread by candleight at a corbelled house in the Karoo
2. I want to continue to work on opening up conversations with random people because that's often where the most interesting tips and stories come from. On a recent trip to the Richtersveld, chatting to a Nama shepherd we passed was a chance to do just that. I want more of the same.
I want more of chatting to people we meet, like Nama shepherd Matthew Joseph in the Richtersveld
3. I’m supremely lucky to be able to do a fair amount of travelling each year, but sometimes it’s to the same places I’ve been dozens of times before. This year I’m determined to include at least one trip to somewhere completely new and previously unexplored (at least by me). My first trip to Lesotho in 2009 was the start of a whole new love affair with that country and I want to fall in love again with somewhere new.
Travelling to somewhere new can lead to falling in love with the place, as we did in Lesotho
4. I’ve used various modes of transport on my travels, from car to 4x4 and Kombi, train to plane, bicycle to pony, helicopter to hot air balloon. This year I’d like to travel in a new and different way, even for a short time.
A hot air balloon is a fabulous way to travel; I want to travel in a new and different way this year too
5. I want to continue to try to be a traveller rather than a tourist. A traveller moves among real people in their own milieu and learns from them, soaking up their wisdom and philosophy, their way of being in the world. A tourist just skims across the surface, cramming in quantity rather than quality, and comes away with her soul and imagination untouched by the wonder of a life lived differently.
What are your travel resolutions for this year? Share them in the comments below.
Copyright © Roxanne Reid - No words or photographs on this site may be used without written permission from roxannereid.co.za
What are your travel resolutions for this year? Share them in the comments below.
Copyright © Roxanne Reid - No words or photographs on this site may be used without written permission from roxannereid.co.za
