Is this the year that you realize your dreams of going to Italy? There are many roadblocks to making dreams a reality, often they are putting in our paths by ourselves. Let’s investigate a couple big reasons people have for not making a dream trip a reality: Time, Money, Fear. Today we will focus on ‘Time’. ‘Money’ and ‘Fear’ will be addressed in the next posts.
“I don’t have the time to take off…”
I am here to tell you that you DO. It is all a matter of prioritization. Today begins 2017. You have 364 days left in this year, how are you going to spend them? Let’s say that you have an image in your head of how you want you trip to Italy to be: you want to visit the Vatican and Rome itself, Florence, Venice, Cinque Terre, Sicily, Assisi, Lake Como and oh…..you heard that Naples was a must see…..and how are you going to fit that all into your two weeks of vacation you have a year?
You’re not.
That itinerary is too much for two weeks.
Maybe you truly don’t have two weeks to give to a trip to Italy….maybe you only have a week because you have an annual tradition of traveling to see extended family at the holidays. Or perhaps your children are involved in sports tournaments and you have to save days to travel to these locations. What if you are the kind of person who takes vacation days to catch up on your life, cleaning your house, home improvement projects, re energizing, or catching up on work? I know you are out there—as a teacher I have been guilty early in my career of taking vacation days to grade essays. Americans are notorious for overworking themselves. Make this year the year that you prioritize a trip to Italy that you have always dreamed of and make it happen.
Alert your extended family know—you probably just saw them for the holidays!—that you will not be at the get together in 2017 if travel is involved. Don’t want to miss out on family holiday? Could you host this year and people to travel to you? What if you celebrated with your extended family IN Italy for 2017? If you share your intentions and plans with family and the importance this trip holds for you, family will probably understand. If not, maybe that doesn’t matter anyway. It could be argued that at some point, you live your life. If a trip to Italy is a dream, YOUR dream, sometimes other people just have to deal with that. (Maybe you inspire them to fulfill one of their personal dreams?)
Have a family conversation about such time obligations such as children’s activities. If your children are also going to be going to Italy, explain and have that conversation about how something will have to give. You might not go to every event if it involves taking time off from work in order to have a different family experience while in Italy. Perhaps you find a parent of another child on the team who will be the trusted adult who will chaperon your child and you return the favor another time. If your children will not be going with you, explain the importance of dreams and time for you. While your children may not necessarily understand this concept yet, you are still modeling a balanced life and the importance of self. I would argue that children who see their parents have a life outside of their children grow up to be more well rounded adults themselves.
If you are are taking time off to catch up on your life, now is a great time to re-evaluate how you are living your life. How can you delegate what you are having to take time off to complete? How can you work smarter, not harder? Are you trying to do too much in your life? Decide what is most important and start there. You may not get it all sussed out this year but at least you will have taken the steps to free up vacation time for vacation. This paves the way for Italy in 2018. Make it happen!
Lastly, you likely will have to prioritize what is most important for you to do and see while in Italy. Your itinerary needs to be manageable. There is so much to do and see—what is most important to YOU? If you have no interest in art, don’t feel obligated to go to all the art museums. If you love food and wine, plan your trip around that. If you can’t stand ruins and history, you don’t have to focus on these…..although, you kind of can’t really avoid them even just walking around most cities in Italy! If your goal is to have a leisurely, relaxing trip then you will have to make some tough decisions about what you most want to see and do. You can certainly have conversations with others about what they have enjoyed but don’t let the “You MUST see/do/go to….” color what is important to you.
“I don’t have the time to plan a trip like I want…”
Take advantages of my services and let me do the planning for you—-visit my ‘Services‘ and ‘Educational Services‘ pages to learn all that I do. I am a total travel nerd in that I actually enjoy the planning process and creating itineraries for people. I love to vicariously travel through my clients’ experiences. I feel a sense of pride and enjoyment when I hear that people had a fantastic experience because of the plans we created together or they do something on my recommendation that they never would have thought of or even tried. You don’t needs days and days to plan the ultimate trip, let me take care of the details for you. Having said that, I am not the only travel agent that specializes on Italy. As a geography and history teacher, I just want people to travel. I just want people to go out and experience the world. If I am the one to help people do this, great. If someone else clicks with you and your style better, great. Make 2017 the year that you make your Italian Dreams come true!
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