Oh, I got the cancel a trip blues.
The” I have to call an airline” blues.
The “I need to cancel my hotel room” blues.
I got those first world problems, can’t go on a trip blues.
I love planning trips. Starting out, there’s an endless number of possibilities. For a new destination, I get to learn about a part of the world we’ve never been to before including new hotels, restaurants, activities, and modes of transportation. Even if we’re going somewhere we’ve been before, it’s still thrilling to finalize plans. Because, once all the planning is done, you can really start to look forward to the trip.
As a child, I kept a trip countdown on my calendar. I’d get so anxious before trips to Disney World, that eventually my parents kept a vacation a secret until the night before. After the shock and thrill wore off, I was crushed. I missed out on all of the planning, the anticipation, and the pre-trip excitement. Pre-teen me promised my parents that I would control my emotions before trips if they promised to never do that to me again. We both kept those promises.
Now I make my own plans and I can act however I want before a trip 🙂 I still try to keep things low-key so I don’t drive Sharon crazy (Note from Sharon: with varying degrees of success), but part of that little kid is still inside.
So you understand why canceling a trip gives me a case of the blues. Which is the mood that I’m currently in.
I’ll have to do some work to unwind the plans I made. Really, that’s the easy part. It’s a minor nuisance to spend time to get back any cash or points tied up in the reservations. The thing that really hurts is the emotional investment in the trip that I was looking forward to going on.
There are any number of reasons a trip just doesn’t work out. Some of these are minor inconveniences or it might be a major life event. Sometimes the reason is totally out of your control. It doesn’t matter why. I’m sure I’m not the only one who gets this way when a trip falls through.
Maybe you were looking towards a big event or meeting up with people you hadn’t seen in a while. You might have found a perfect hotel or scored a reservation at a hot restaurant. You could be missing a cruise or maybe you just wanted to get to the beach and read that book you’ve meant to pick up for the last five years.
I know the feeling will pass. Usually, I’ll get out of this funk by thinking about a new trip but the current situation doesn’t make that activity feel exciting.
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
1 comment
I hear you. Just canceled a trip to Israel I was really looking forward to. I’m hoping travel in general by the summer looks better, but I’m also finding the planning difficult now. I’m mostly using it as a time to research domestic destinations, but not make specific plans. Thank goodness I took a two week trip in early February! The uncertainty is definitely difficult.