Managing your expectations

Travelling is incredibly enriching and exciting - but make sure your expectations are realistic to avoid disappointment!

Travel is the most exciting, spine-tingling thing we can do in our lives, but sometimes it doesn’t go exactly as we’d planned! To avoid getting a feeling like you do on Christmas day after you’ve opened all your presents, you should try and manage your expectations! It’s hard though, because we normally spend months thinking about a trip abroad and the excitement is automatic. The last thing we want to do is dampen down that excitement because it’s what makes travel so much fun; just make sure your expectations are realistic.

In fact, by managing your expectations you can actually enjoy yourself more; being deflated because things are not exactly as you had hoped often stops you from enjoying what is there. The key is to get excited about what a place is really like rather than how you imagine it to be. The same goes for volunteering; don’t expect too much from one trip or feel pressure to achieve more than is reasonable. About.com offers plenty of good articles on travelling, including this one which paints a more realistic picture of travel in the developing world!

Volunteering

If you’ve decided to volunteer abroad then it’s because you care about making a difference in people’s lives. While it’s great to have that motivation, don’t expect too much from yourself. Unfortunately you can’t save the world in one trip no matter how many houses you help build or lion cubs you cuddle! The key is to concentrate on the small differences that you can make and see the value in those.

If you help put up a house in Honduras, think about the difference that that is going to make to someone’s life rather than about all the people who still don’t have shelter; your arms aren’t that strong! The success of international volunteering is based on lots of people all making a small difference rather than one person doing everything! As you leave, someone else will arrive to finish off what you started and gradually we can make things better.

It’s not like home!

Cultures are a bit like beds; each one is different and you’re never quite as comfortable in someone else’s! If you travel to countries in the developing world you’re bound to come across things that make you feel uncomfortable or perhaps even offended. Nothing you can say or do will change the way people in other countries live, so if there are certain things that you won’t like, it’s best to avoid those places altogether. Some good blogs offering advice on travelling in the developing world can be found at wordpress.com.

Remember you’re travelling to the real world

While that wonderful view or secluded beach will give you memories that will last a lifetime, the bus you catch to get there may take a long time and smell a bit! Appreciating that no place is perfect is what real travel is about and can actually make the experience more fun. Just think of all the great stories you’d miss out on if all the buses ran on time and there weren’t any street sellers to annoy you! This article at Everywhere.com reminds us what travelling is really like!

It’s not like I expected!

A mixture of glossy travel brochures and bubbly TV presenters has given us a rather idealised view of the world and of travel in particular. If it’s not the news telling us everywhere is dangerous it’s Thomas Cook telling us that everywhere is picture-postcard perfect. People who try to sell you holidays paint their pictures with very broad strokes and make everywhere seem like a paradise! The truth lies somewhere in the middle; there are wonderful things to discover, but it won’t always be perfect.

Do your research

Doing your research before you go means you know what to expect. If you’re travelling to the developing world it’s pretty obvious that there are going be significant differences you’ll just have to get used to. You will probably see examples of poverty and this may have a profound effect on you. Infrastructure and bureaucracy may frustrate you so you’ll need to be flexible and appreciate that as annoying as disorder and chaos is, at least you get to go home to a (relatively) stress-free country. To know what to expect, read the Lonely Planet website or splash out on a guidebook that you can carry with you.

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