I leave for Paris tomorrow. I’ll do two weeks of mild, worry-free travel in France and Italy – areas I’ve been through before – and then I’ll move into a ground floor, furnished apartment on Sardinia right on the beach, where I’ll edit for four months, as a 19 year old, dark haired, attentive village girl in an ill-fitting peasant shirt attends to my light house keeping and meals while slowly falling in love with me, like in the movie “Love, Actually”.
So why do I feel like I’m parachuting into Darfur with a week’s worth of beef jerky and orders to assassinate someone important?
This bloody pre-travel anxiety happens every time. I don’t know how many trips I’ve been on… at least a squillion. You’d think I’d be pretty nonchalant about it by now, but no. For days before each trip, whether I’m traveling for a weekend or ten months I get all bent out of shape. I can’t sleep, I’m antsy, I babble (more so).
It’s like a corner of my brain – an important one, with hard disk errors – forgets that I’m a hardened traveler. Without fail, I’m a mess all the way up to the trip and maybe a few days into it, but then I somehow remember that I’m perfectly capable of doing the things that need to be done to survive on the road and everything is fine for the rest of the trip.
Weird.
The upshot is that the DHL guy just delivered to my door the greatest geek productivity tool in the history of the universe, which, if I ever figure out how to make it work, I intend to flaunt during the entire flight over the Atlantic (can you use Bluetooth technology on a plane?), driving the other geeks into an unhinged frenzy of envy and causing female business travelers to throw moist panties at me.
Details forthcoming…
Ack! I just Googled pre-travel anxiety and you popped up. I get the EXACT same way. It’s always fine once I’m on the plane but the week before I am a wreck! I know it starts when I begin to cancel the trip in my head. Then I start to worry about everything from the arrangements for the dog to packing.
I have to tell myself how irrational my anxiety is and reassure myself that I’ll be fine.
Hi,
I face the exact same issue, in spite of have traveled before the feeling of anxiety doesn’t go just before a trip, i feel like why am i doing it? shld i cancel it, there is a constant feeling of fear . i know i can do it and have done it, but it occurs every time, i don’t know if there is anyone else who has this, but is there any cure? few days before travel are a mess, but lots of emotions running
I get this way too!! Right before a big trip, i start worrying like mad and exactly the same as you, have thoughts that i don’t want to go… It’s always when i go to new places, I think it has something to do with uncertainty, and I have been trying to find a cure, but no dice yet. Certain relaxation techniques like playing an instrument or freewriting help a little bit, but it’s only temporary. hope this helps!
I leave on my dream vacation in a few days, Japan and Australia, and all I can think about are excuses to cancel the trip. Last night I tossed and turned for hours with anxiety and struggled to get out of bed in the morning. I kept thinking about how I would explain to everyone why I didn’t go. Since I’m going alone I actually thought about getting a hotel close to home for the duration of the trip and pretending I went… Your mind thinks up some crazy things when it feels cornered.
I’ve done my share of travelling, Europe, South America, Caribbean, and the more I travel the worse it gets… I’ve had nothing but good times on my vacation(s) so I don’t know why the thought of travel has become so agonizing. Reading your article has given me some comfort in knowing I’m not alone. In fact I imagine there are millions more that suffer in silence.
@Mike – I agree. It appears to be far more common that I realized when I first wrote this post. Many of my colleagues feel the same way. I think it’s like jumping out of a plane. Once you get over that initial paralyzing terror, it’s wonderful.