How to choose the next vacation’s destination?
That is how my mind runs when I am thinking about my next destination…
I usually have the most confusion and trouble getting through this part of my trips.
I am always fighting between the famous places where I want my friends and family to see I went and the places which are quaint,
not so glamorous, but have that epic activity which I would love to do- like scuba diving. I fell in love with scuba diving on my trip to the Andaman Islands 4 years ago.
It was difficult mentally to strap on that BCD and think that it would be fine meandering through the water with all that weight around me. It was a huge mental block to ignore that fact that down underwater 10-15 Mtrs, I will have only the pipe attached to mouth to keep me alive.
But thankfully the 1 day of practicing inside a pool really takes out the fear of it and makes you much more comfortable knowing that there is a backup mouth piece and also an instructor.
But it is AMAZING, the feeling as soon as you get deeper than 10 Mtrs cannot be put in words. You feel different. The world is gone! It is just you your partners and this new totally different world out there. You hardly get the time to think about other things when you are scouring for the next thing to see down there. Anyways, scuba diving will take another piece from me.
So it was quite some time ago when I decided I will travel according to my interests rather than what other people found pretty or astonishing. It was a way of making my vacation even more MY OWN. On my first trip I chose Yoga and learned the basics for 3 days. It was amazing. I returned a YOGI from that vacation
Likewise, I returned a Surfer from my second solo trip.
Now I travel according to the activity I want to do, subsequently I have done 3 more yoga trips. It doesn’t have to be a new thing every time for me. This one time I combined guitar lessons with Yoga on the Beach trip. It was the most eventful trip I have to say. I was pretty comfortable doing yoga by now and I chose this group of 15 women who practice yoga at the beach in Goa. Since one is in Goa, I decided I wanted to look for a guitar class in Goa, I am a basic strummer and can make the difference between a A-minor and a C-sharp
I enrolled for a guitar lesson by the beach for 3 days- twice daily and ended up playing a pretty decent version of smoke on the water.
Long story short- Choose who you want to be for the 5 days- a yogi, a guitarist, a scuba diver, a camper and choose the best place which gives you this opportunity to become a new version of yourself for the 4/5 days that you are there.
Choose a place which is inherently safe, usually the south of India and the North east and North Hills are the most safe in terms of statistics.
- Choose the activity that interests you- scuba, surfing, trekking, camping, yoga
- Choose the inherently safest place where this activity is undertaken
- Book your transport to the place in advance
- Find out the vendors facilitating these activities
- Find out about their reputation and past experiences of people if any
- Contact the vendor and ask for classes’dates and prices
- Find out if they take individual participants or have a batch requirements
- Usually they will ask you to come in a group so find out a few friends who are interested
- In case no one can make the time when you want to go then request them for adjusting you in a batch which already has a good number of people in it.
- Book and GO BE THAT DIFFERENT PERSON for a week!!