Pre trip stress loads

[lowlysubaruguy]

Reading the revived post below about BYOB on Jet Blue flights brought me to make this post.

Surely I cant be the only one who seems to have a hefty load of stress that develops before you take a trip. I don't drink alcohol any more so I cant fix it with a cold one, there was a time in my life where I would have tried.

Im less than two weeks from my next trip. I own two automotive shops and it seems the best way to overload them with work and problem cars is to have a vacation scheduled. And it seems to be right on course. I developed a nasty cold Friday its getting better so I am optomistic it will be gone long before the flight. One of my key employees is now sick the kind of sick thats been a month of testing and no idea whats wrong. He is so so and can work when he feels well enough. He figured out he was sick right after I booked my flights. My wifes work has three employees out sick and she is now coughing. Im dealing with it quite fine but am expecting a couple more issues to pop up as the date approaches.

My clocks normally wound pretty tight so Im used to it but it doesnt seem like taking vacations is any easier as I progress through life. Used to be the same as the above but we were stretching a dollar to make a trip work so financially its better, but im expecting to be fully engulfed in the what will go wrong next before I leave out of here. I did not get a vacation last year which is also a no no had a surgery that complicated that.

It seems the trips with the least pre trip stress i just book a flight somwhere when the shops are slow and everything is great and fly out within a couple of days. And when i semi retire in a few years I will do more of these but I wont have so many other things to be an issue then any way at least I hope not.

Tell me im not alone here.

 

[Johnoly]

The diving reefs in southeast florida are so close to land that you can actually see the cell phone towers. It is not uncommon to see a diver with a laptop and a cellphone "attending" a conference call meeting while the boat is traveling to the dive site. I've done it too. The best one I saw was a "help-line" computer guy. During the surface interval he called back a frantic VP in Seattle from Florida while 3 miles offshore. Logged on and took control of the guy's desktop machine, fixed the file he damaged and was a hero to the VP in 15 minutes. He said he was going to ask the VP for an extra day of vacation.

 

[BoltSnap]

I go through similar situations like you do but as soon as I have the seat-belt on and the plane starts to taxi away for takeoff, I forget all about the stress and what can go wrong and look forward to the vacation and going underwater, screw everything else!!

 

[AdivingBel]

…..

 

[Bubblesong]

Both me and my hubby have worked from cruise ship. I can’t speak for my hubby, but I wish i had just set up a trusted associate to handle events without me, so i could completely cut loose.

 

[lowlysubaruguy]

Somehow I deleted Adivingbellls response sorry . But it was spot on for me.

I am the guy in South Florida whos on his phone talking business while his buddies are below drifting the reefs. I wont tell you its perfect but its life. I dont get enough time off its my own creation. However in the not so distant future I will have more time off and hopefully at an early enough age to see it pay off. I cant change it cant fix all I can do is work through it. The funny part about this is one of my buddies complains about the amount of time I spend tending my life and business while on a dive trip meanwhile he spends more time off in some corner smoking a cigarette or on the phone with crap that has little to no relivence to the dive trip even if its not work.

In three years maybe less we will take three months off a year and spend the winters off in Florida and we will do a little travelling for about another month a year. There is no rest until we get to this point and even then there will be a level of input that will produce stress and require input from us. I deal with it and have had a lot of experience dealing with it but I do find it interesting how often everything goes south just before I get ready to board a plane.

 

[Jayfarmlaw]

It's not just you. I'm a solo attorney specializing in farm bankruptcy and foreclosure defense, we raise cattle, and have rent houses. We try to take two dive vacations a year. Luckily, Cozumel has great internet and my AT&T phone works better in Cozumel than in OKC. I can be a week ahead at work...work while away...and still come back two weeks behind. It's just the nature of the beast. I have someone to help feed cattle while away and I give my renters a general contractors name if anything needs to be fixed on an emergency basis.

Like you, we hope to be spending several months in Cozumel within 5 years. I just look at it as paying my dues for another 5 years so I can slow waaay down at 55.

I feel your pain...for a little while longer...

Jay

 

[Esprise Me]

It's not just you. I not only get stressed out before a vacation trying to get everything done, I get a little fomo about cool stuff I'm missing at work while I'm gone. But then as soon as I'm back I'm thinking about that next trip...

 

[BoltSnap]

The worst time is when you return home from the vacation not leaving to go on a vacation

 

[Hoag]

@lowlysubaruguy you are most definitely not alone.

I think that in addition to the factors already mentioned, there is a huge variance in the amount of pre-trip stress depending on how much of the trip I am responsible to organize and how many people are counting on me to get it right.

As an example, I have two trips coming up almost back to back this spring. The first one is a photo trip with a good friend. We are flying into Vegas, picking up a rental car and heading up to Death Valley for a few days of landscape & Milky Way photography followed by a few days at the "Jedi Transition" photographing military aircraft flying through a canyon in a Low Level Training area. Neither of us have been to Death Valley, nor to the Jedi Transition, and my travel companion is one of my best friends. Having said that, because we have never been there, we have not scouted locations other than online, on Google Earth, on "The Photographer's Ephemeris" and a few other other resources. Even though I know that we will have fun and that even if things don't go exactly the way we hope, we will likely walk away with some pretty good shots (or stories), this trip has me stressed out.

The other trip, is a dive trip to CocoView in Roatan a couple weeks after I get back from Death Valley. I have never been there before either, but that trip is being organized by an LDS in a town where I used to live. Basically, I have to pay my bill & book my flights. Nobody is counting on me to ensure that nothing falls through the cracks. Guess what? I have no stress at all associated with this trip.

I think that the amount of pre-trip stress depends on many things and to a certain degree, is directly related to how much and how many other people are counting on you to "get it right".

Someone (I think it was Jimmy Buffett), once said something to the effect of:
The difference between a tourist and a traveler becomes apparent when something goes sideways (and something always will).
A tourist will to some degree freak out.
A traveler on the other hand, will roll with it and walk away with a great story about their adventure.

The best piece of advice I can give you is to not let the stress get to you (I know easier said than done) and to be a traveler not a tourist.