Chapter 8. Discovering your journey style
Now let’s take time to discover
what might be your most favorite Journey Style whether it is one that is…
a. a
logically focused trip
b. a
freely wandering exploration
c. a
group/family experience
d. a
structured tour
Each of these can be very positive
and beneficial or possibly negative and detrimental.
Answer the following questions to
clarify which of these four Journey Styles is your preferred.
a. a logically focused trip
1. Do
you research all of your trips before deciding where, when, how, why
you are going to
go?
2. Do
you establish a concrete budget and a backup plan?
3. Do
you interview experts, travel agents, experience travelers, tourist
information
offices.
b. a freely wandering exploration
1. Do
you fantasize about where you want or dream of going?
2. Do
you simply take off my minimal planning or research?
3. Do
you sporadically change your destinations and journey as it happens?
4. Do
you travel by your gut feelings and changing whims?
c. a group/family experience
1. Do
discuss plans with family and friends?
2. Do
you each divide up the work needed to plan your trip?
3. Do
you check with your fellow travelers regularly to make sure
that the trip is
turning out to be fun for everyone and not just for you?
4. Do
you change plans for the comfort of your friends and family
even if it ends up
completely changing your own goals
and plans without
complaining?
d. a structured tour
1. Do
you collect brochures and extensive tourist information?
2. Do
you prefer to rely on a professional tour guide or tour agent?
3. Do
you budget your travels based on the costs of the guaranteed tours?
4. Do
you comfortably ride along on busses, trains and in cars going where
your
tour guide has planned for you all to go?
The more yesses you have in any
category of course will point towards your preferred journey style.
Think about
your most enjoyed vacations.
Which would fit
which style?
Think about your childhood. Which of these styles were you allowed or
encouraged to use. Did your parents
encourage that you do adequate to extensive research before you took a
journey? Did your parents support your
adventurous nature? Did your parents
always want you to travel with others, to take your brothers or sisters along
most of all of the time you went anywhere?
Did your parents always encourage you ask a friend to go along with the
family on their journeys? Did your
parents, your mother always go to the local AAA office or tourist agency to
have your family’s vacation completely worked out and mapped? Did your parents always make hotel or motel
reservations far in advance leaving nothing to chance as you traveled?
Just writing these questions and
thoughts has caused me to reexamine my parents journey styles. My father would normally do research. Normally he resisted leaving work. But we were on the road finally he enjoyed
himself. He simply did not want to argue
with his wife about where “they” would go on his vacation. He wasn’t a high risk taker yet he was a
problem solver and would take safe estimate low risks. Mostly he wanted to know where he was
headed. At the same time he didn’t need
to have reservations ahead of time. He
trusted that there would be plenty of rooms waiting for us to check into.
My mother preferred having her
vacation completely organized, planned and preset and to have the trusty AAA
Triptik, motel/hotel guidebooks and American Express checks in hand. Though she didn’t have to make pre-arranged
reservations unless warned ahead of time that the destination was so popular
that it would be dangerous not to have reservations. If it had a AAA sign hanging out front it was
safe to both of them. If long haul
trucks were parked in the parking lot the restaurant would have good food. If it was a Howard Johnson’s restaurant or
motel it could be trusted.
Gamblers they seldom were. They were explorers with a previously arrange
plan and map. My father could find any
location. His strategy was always to
have good state and local maps and to buy a street directory. With those in hand he could find any building
or friend’s house.
Going with
their gut was not their style.
My style tends to be a mix of the
researching and to wandering exploration.
I don’t like to necessarily take big risks but I will go with the flow
and trust that I will make any situation into a beneficial one. My standards are simple. Basic reasonably priced food, a clean place
to sleep, places worthy of experiencing whether it is the Eiffel Tower, Uluru
(famous Australian rock), the Pyramids or simply a walk through the back
streets of new city or town.
Stop for a
minute.
Think about your journey styles in
your other life journeys: school, work,
family in general, life in general.
Before you begin something new,
start another journey, what do you do first?
a. research
b. just
do it
c. check
with friends first
d. visit
a tourist office or ask an expert for reliable plans
In school which did you do most of
the time? Did you try different
styles? Which were the most successful?
In finding your first job, the next
job, your most recent job, which style did you use? Did your research the possible employers and
their companies? Did you just say that
it sounds like fun and accept the job you found? Did you create your own job, even one that
didn’t exist then? Did you check with
friends and relatives about jobs where they work? Did you go to a career counselor and do
extensive prep work to decide before you called for an appointment or sent out
your resumes?
What journey style do you use
typically with your family? wife or
husband? children? Do you use different styles with different
family members or in different situations?
In your life in general, do you
research before you do? Do you simply
wander, explore and experiment during each day or at some times during each
week, month or year? Do you deliberately
choose to do everything with groups of family members, friends or fellow
employees or professionals? Are all your
activities group activities? Bowling,
baseball or volleyball teams? Group
lunches? Group dates? Do you plan everything you do and have a very
defined and detail schedule with everything planned in advance?
Once again no one of these alone is
right or wrong. How right they are depends
on you and your goals. If you are a
wanderer you need to wander at least part to most of the time. If you are a rational research focus person
than that is what you need to do. If you
love to be and do things with other people all the time than that is probably
best for you. Lastly if you need
assurances and guarantees that there are no risks involved then that style is
best for you.
The key for me and I believe for
you is that no matter what journey style or combination you use that you make
sure that you are benefiting directly from your journeys and not simply a
tourist in your life going on one guided tour after another.
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