What to Look for in a Travel Destination?
Not everyone finds it easy to decide where to go on their travels. Sometimes this is due to a limited amount of vacation time. Other times, it’s because there are too many excellent possibilities to narrow it down quickly.
Before you’ve hit every destination and travel activity on your bucket list, you may find that the travel bug is so strong that you wish to work in the travel or hospitality industries. To do so, you typically require one of the many hospitality degrees to get into management level. There are hospitality degrees at educations.com to consider if you’re serious about a change of career when you cannot shake the travel bug and wish to make it a career. In fact, your passion for travel could make you a great travel consultant!
Here are some suggestions for how to reduce your list of travel destinations to the most suitable one for you.
Activities Are the Attraction
Creating great memories through visiting different tourist attractions is really what sets a vacation apart from any other. You’re a demon for the guidebook and want to tick off each local best attraction listed there. Nothing will sway you from this proven path to tourist satisfaction!
If this sounds like your trips away – there’s never been an attraction that you didn’t like – then you know what you need to do. In that sense, the destination that has the most interesting attractions to visit is going to be the most fun for you. Whether the same goes for anyone you travel with, that’s another story entirely! One person’s interesting attraction is another person’s boring time.
When you want experiences more than material things, then go for the experiences every time. That’s your sweet spot.
The Destination is the Selling Point
The destination is what you want. You want it to be different from your hometown or city. It can be another US city or a foreign country, but above all, you want to feel like you went somewhere. The streets look and feel different, and exploring the surrounding area takes you into scenery and land that’s totally unlike what you have at home.
For instance, a visit to Skiathos in the Greek Islands puts you on basic roads, sometimes pebbly and other times sandy beaches, simple tavernas where you can eat a meal of seafood or Italian pasta, and everywhere you look it’s very Greek. Unmistakably so, in fact. From the white-washed buildings to the blue shutters on the windows, to the look of the people and the scenery; it’s clear you’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy.
If the destination is your thing, then pick places to go that are night and day different from what you’re used to. This way you really get the feeling of having been somewhere. It’s in the contrasts that you get the greatest enjoyment from your travel experience and you should actively embrace that to get the most out of it. Even if you can only travel for 1-2 weeks, it’s still long enough to soak up the different culture and variety of cuisine with gusto.
Exotic vs Predictably Good
You don’t like stretching out of your comfort zone when traveling. You may like to think of yourself as adventurous, but the truth is that you stay at the same 2-3 hotel chains for predictability. You tend to visit cities and towns that are either like where you live now or are reminiscent of where you grew up. ‘Don’t go too far and don’t ride too fast’ could be your motto about travels and a general outlook on trying new things in life. You like it predictably good without risking anything. Does that sound like you?
On the other hand, when exotic is what you crave, then you’re taking the desire for something new and different to another extreme. If you’re a Christian, then you’re wanting to go to Malaysia to experience a Muslim country for the first time. If you live in LA and speak English and Spanish with the locals, you want to go to Africa where you need to speak French to get by. You’re wanting a totally different experience that you’d quickly describe as exotic and won’t mind roughing it a little either to get that first-hand.
Knowing which traveler you are is enormously helpful to book a vacation that you’ll enjoy. Some people just don’t wish to travel to Asia or Africa or the Middle East and have no interest in experiencing it, and that’s perfectly okay. Other people want the most exotic, intoxicating travel experience they can get. If you’re either of these types of traveler, embrace it.
What’s on the Menu, Today?
You’re a devoted foodie. When you travel, it’s for the food. You have a guidebook oriented towards the best restaurants and you’ve marked the pages of note already. If you love to find out about the restaurant recipes and tend to ask the wait staff to let you back in the kitchen claiming you’re a travel food blogger just to see how they prepare the dishes, then that’s your priorities right there.
When you want to know “What’s on the menu, today?” and that’s the first question you want answering when wandering around near to local stores, bars, and restaurants, then your order of priorities is pretty clear.
Instagram and Facebook Are My Very Best Friends!
Grabbing a selfie to capture the moment and immediately sharing it with a funny caption to Instagram and Facebook is the best. The more noteworthy the place, the grander the setting, the more fabulous your life appears to be. When sharing and liking, and more sharing and more liking is how you spend many of your waking hours every day, then social media is king.
With this focus, choose destinations and activities based on their potential to deliver the ultimate in photographic splendor. Reserve the table in the restaurant with the best lighting and picture framing suitability. Scope out the place before placing the reservation to ensure it’s up to scratch. If this is how you work your vacation time, then follow your passion for feeding the social machine.
It’s on My Bucket List
Crossing off places and things to do from your bucket list has become a bit of an obsession for some people. The bucket list has become their travel to-do list and they derive great satisfaction from being able to cross things off their bucket list. This is because the list seems to keep growing, not shrinking, so they’re not keeping up with all the places to see. Do you have a travel bucket list?
I Want to See It While I’m Still Young Enough to Enjoy It
Some travel itineraries work out better when you’re young. When you’re older, you may not want to climb that mountain, bungee jump off the highest spot or rough it in a hostel in south-east Asia. It sounds nice, but when you’re older, it won’t be as fun. Whether you want to go all party animal every night or skydive, there are just some vacation activities that are better when you’re in your 20s. Trust us on that!
When thinking about what to look for in a travel destination, it’s not all about the place. A lot more goes into the priorities, likes, and dislikes than we like to believe. These all play a factor in whether we’re likely to have a great time on our next vacation or not. Know the type of vacations that you most enjoy and plan around that. You’ll be happier for it.
Like this Article? Share it!
