7 New Years Resolutions for Travellers

It’s that time of year again. Christmas has been and gone, kindly leaving us with a bulging midriff that serves as a guilt alarm every time we look down to adjust our shoelaces (or more likely loosen our belts a notch).

Gyms are leveraging said guilt and our newfound festive weight gain as a means of herding us up and offering us a once in a lifetime opportunity to sign a 12 month membership contract that is likely to be used about as often as a soda stream.

But without a second thought, most of us throw away our new year's resolutions with mundane goals like “lose some weight” that aren’t motivating, won’t be that fulfilling in the unlikely event that we achieve them, and even worse don’t align with our passions.

So if you’re a traveller, we’ve carefully collated the 7 best new years resolutions for you to get an edge on 2021 and push your life and your travels to their highest potential, avoiding the typical pitfalls that most fall into when making their resolutions.

Here are our 7 New Years Resolutions For Travellers.

1. Learn A Language

Thanks to a black hole of misinformation, woeful French classes in the 80’s packed with overly complicated grammar and little to no helpful phrases, and a seemingly endless learning curve, learning languages for many remains more daunting than walking through a haunted manor house on Friday the 13th during a thunderstorm.

However, we’ve deconstructed the truth behind language learning and it’s not nearly as complicated or difficult as you imagine. You likely already know 100’s of foreign words thanks to cognates (which we covered in our language learning guide).

In the year 2021 we don't need to be buried in text books and getting caught up in needless grammar, with Babbel you can listen to native speakers, easily pick up the accents and natural rhythms of a language and become fluent in a matter of months!

Learn A New Language Today

2. Explore Your Own Country

Not every adventure has to be exorbitant, not every trip needs to induce jet lag and not every holiday has to seek out the far out and exotic. The best stories are ones of experiences and connecting with like minded people, and that is a recipe that can be cooked up in your own back garden.

Check Out 7 Bookitlist Experiences In The U.K For Less Than £125

3. Create Your Bookitlist & Tick Something Off Of It!

It’s not just a whimsical gesture of hope to write your goals down, in fact it’s been proven that writing down your goals can increase your chances of achieving them by as much as 42%! That’s a hell of a big step towards your travel dreams just by noting things down don’t you think?

If you don’t have a Bookitlist, you’re basically saying that it’s not worth 3-5 minutes of your day to increase the chances of your dream journeys happening by more than a third! Don’t worry, we’ve got your back. You can make your Bookitlist in just a few minutes and get 42% closer to those dream travels you dream of… the ones you’ll recant stories of to your grandchildren and smile whimsically to when a song reminds you of them on the radio.

Create Your Bookitlist In Just A Few Minutes Now

4. Travel More With Weekend Breaks

For many of us travel means 1-2 weeks somewhere, usually once or twice a year (anymore and you can consider yourself lucky). However if you’re budget conscious, plan a little and willing to shoot off the moment your work finishes for the week (or book Friday off in advance so you can take a long weekend), you’ll be able to probably double or even triple your travels in 2021.

From London you can do a weekend in Amsterdam for just £200 all in if you plan a little.

From Leeds you could manage 3 nights in Portugal for £250 if you’re just a little diligent in finding value for money flights and hotels ahead of time. Practically everywhere in the UK has cheap flights (under £80 return) to dozens of destinations year round, and decent hotels can now be found for as little as £30 a night.

Sprinkle a few activities and you’re able to turn your usual trip or two, into a string of adventures dotted across the year. You can also combine this with point 2 and find some beautiful weekend breaks in the UK to make the logistics even easier. No more counting down 187 days until your next break!

Check Out Our Favourite City Break Locations

5. Travel For An Event… Not Just A Destination!

If stories are what we carry with us long after a holiday is over, why are we so obsessed with making a trip to a specific island, rather than being enamoured with the activities that will bring us the best stories in years to come?

Rather than dreaming of another destination because the pictures in an instagram post look pretty, ask yourself what you really enjoy about life.

If you love long countryside walks back home, book a hike through the Inca Trail and discover Machu Picchu, if you’re a fan of summer days and water fights, head to Songkran the world’s biggest water fight festival in Thailand. If you love Bourbon whisky and Jazz music, head to Mardi Gras in New Orleans!

The world is full of much more than a string of exotic destinations, it’s packed with festivals, races, excursions, parties and events that are unique and cannot be replicated in any other place at any other time. What can be more special than that?

6. Learn To Cook Your Favourite Foreign Cuisine

How many times have you felt a rumble in your stomach and quickly slid into a daydream about that quaint backstreet Mediterranean bar with moreish tapas and sumptuous Sangria? Perhaps you’re the type to order a curry at the weekend and dream of eating an authentic Chicken Tawa with roti smothered in ghee and a mango lassi?

There’s no reason for you to go salivating over instagram food pics from far away lands only to sink your teeth into a bland sandwich moments later. Learning to cook just 2 or 3 dishes, in the authentic style of the dish's origin can not only bring you closer to your travels through taste and smell, but makes a serious impression at dinner parties.

Pad Gra Prow Ghai or Thai Holy Basil Chicken as we refer to it is an astoundingly simple dish to cook that takes a whopping 12 minutes in total to cook from scratch. It may take 3 or 4 tries to nail the execution, but imagine being able to cook authentic Thai or Indian food anytime you fancied it, at a fraction of the cost and twice the taste of your local takeaway.

7. Tick Off One Of The 7 Wonders Of The World

They may be cliche, but they’re popular for a reason. The best part of the 7 world wonders is not actually the wonders themselves (which sounds a little clandestine we know), it’s the destination they’re erected in.

Machu Picchu is only available to those who are willing to hike through lush Peruvian jungle which is an experience in and of itself, Christ the Redeemer sits aloft one of the most alluring and laid back soulful cities the world over. The Taj Mahal sits at the crest of India’s Golden Triangle, a trinity of ancient cities with a seemingly endless list of exquisite excursions to tick off your Bookitlist.

The Great Wall Of China is over 13,000 miles long, mankind's longest standing structure, and sprawls across half a dozen iconic Chinese destinations that are worth a trip in their own right. Petra is literally carved into the bedrock of the Jordanian hills in a fitting metaphor for it’s cultural roots and is neighboured by nearby Bedouin desert camps that are every bit as spellbinding as The Treasury.

Chichen Itza is a temple to the sun gods from the ancient Incas and on a foggy morning is shrouded in mist and mystery in equal measure, it’s also within driving distance of Mexico’s turquoise cenotes that make for an ethereal dip. Finally the Colosseum played host to the Gladiatorial games of Ancient Rome, and can be walked through and experience alongside the rest of Rome’s renaissance masterpieces.

There you have it. Our 7 Epic New Years Resolutions For Travellers!

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