The Essential Traveller

For a long time, I thought making the most of a vacation meant making the most of every minute. If we were in a new city, surely we needed to see the famous sights, visit the museums, find the best restaurants, take the walking tour, explore the neighbourhoods and somehow fit in a sunset cocktail before collapsing into bed. After all, we had travelled all that way, so we certainly weren’t going to waste a minute.

Then I realized that sometimes I was coming home from vacation needing another vacation to recover from the first one.

Perhaps there is another way to travel.

Essentialism is about recognizing what truly matters and being willing to let go of everything that doesn’t. When I think about that through the eyes of a traveller, it feels wonderfully liberating. We don’t have to see everything, do everything or experience every attraction a destination has to offer. In fact, trying to fit it all in can leave us so busy checking things off our list that we forget to actually experience where we are.

Some of my favourite travel memories have nothing to do with the things we planned months in advance. They are the moments when we sat at a little café longer than we intended because the conversation was too good to leave, wandered down a street simply because it looked interesting, discovered a restaurant because someone recommended it, or found ourselves sitting somewhere beautiful with nowhere else we needed to be.

Those are the moments when I feel like I’m actually travelling rather than simply visiting.

Maybe essentialism is also about deciding what we want to carry with us. I’m not just talking about the suitcase, although I have certainly learned that I can survive a trip without packing an outfit for every possible mood. I’m talking about the mental baggage, too. The pressure to make every day extraordinary, the feeling that we’re somehow doing travel wrong if we haven’t seen enough, and the temptation to compare our experience with everyone else’s highlight reel.

There is something wonderfully freeing about saying, “This is enough.”

Maybe today we don’t need another attraction. Maybe we need a long lunch. Maybe we don’t need to catch the next tour. Maybe we need to sit by the water and watch the boats go by. Maybe the best thing we can put on our itinerary is a big, beautiful blank space.

For me, travelling more mindfully has meant becoming much more selective about what deserves my time and energy. I want the meals that turn into memories, the conversations that make us laugh until our stomachs hurt, the walks that lead somewhere unexpected and the quiet mornings when there is nowhere we have to be. I want to experience a place rather than conquer it.

I think that is the beauty of essentialism: when we stop trying to fit everything into our journey, we finally have room to notice what is already there.

The world isn’t going anywhere. We don’t have to see it all in one trip, and we don’t need to leave a destination exhausted simply to prove that we made the most of it. We can always come back, or perhaps leave a few things undiscovered for the next adventure.

The Mindful Traveller thought

Travel isn’t a competition to see who can do the most, visit the most places or return home with the longest list of accomplishments. It is an invitation to be somewhere new with an open mind and enough space to actually notice the people, the food, the beauty, the laughter and the unexpected moments that make a journey memorable.

Choose what matters to you. Let go of what doesn’t. Leave room for the unexpected.

The goal isn’t to return home saying, “We did everything.”

It’s to return home thinking, “We were truly there.”

Yours in reflection, Ms. Mindful Traveller

P.S. If the idea of doing less but better resonates with you, the book that inspired this post is Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown — a wonderful read for travellers and anyone craving a simpler way.