Going Travelling? Know What You Value Before You Leave

Are you going traveling? It’s extremely important that you know what is valuable to you when you travel. What do I mean by this? For example, when I travel I value two things:

1.  A luxurious place to stay.
2. Delicious meals  (including dessert and coffee) with equally delicious wine.

Those are the two things I won’t do without. Period.

So if I was offered a trip to Tahiti but I had to stay in a hostel, that wouldn’t work for me. I don’t do hostels. There is nothing wrong with a hostel, plenty of people love them, but a hostel doesn’t appeal to me and never will. So the value of seeing Tahiti but having to stay in a hostel would totally ruin the trip, and therefore wouldn’t be worth it for me.

Everyone values different things. When I go to a restaurant, I don’t look at prices. Now please don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not rich at all, I just take enough money with me so that if I want to have an expensive meal and a nice bottle of wine, I can do that. I’m willing to forgo a museum in order to have a great meal. Eating for me is one of the best ways to experience a country, and after my meal I like to come home to my lovely apartment rental.

Knowing What To Spend When Going Travelling

For instance, I was in Ecuador with my friend Kristine and I found out Maná was in concert. I’m going to digress for a minute and tell you about Ecuador. Vacationing in Quito, Ecuador was really cheap.

We had a lovely apartment for 10 days for less than $500 (we split that cost), taxis started at .40 cents, buses were .25 cents and food was very cheap.  We made our breakfast and coffee in the morning and I didn’t need to worry about spending money. I Had we been in Paris, we wouldn’t have been able to spend so little money because things can be expensive and our money doesn’t go as far.

This is also a factor in deciding what you value because if you only have a set amount of money, what you value may vary if you are in a place where your money may stretch a bit farther. My dollars stretched like Gumby in Quito.

 

Anyway, back to Maná.  I LOVE Maná and wanted to see them live. Kristine said she would love to see a Spanish rock group in a Spanish speaking country. I found out the tickets were $120. Now, one thing you may not know about me is that I don’t buy cheap seats. If I go to a concert, a show, or any type of event, I like to be right in front of the action. I’m not the girl that will be happy with a nose bleed seat. I’d rather stay home, thank you very much.

So for me, it’s worth it to pay more for a ticket because I value sitting close. My friend didn’t want to pay $120 for a ticket to a group she had never heard of. She had a very high paying job and could have easily paid for both of our tickets, but the value for her for what she would get from the concert wasn’t equal to the price of the ticket.

I totally understood that so I went by myself. As someone who is accustomed to traveling solo, I didn’t have a problem going to a concert by myself. I wasn’t mad at her for not going, it wasn’t worth it to her. So if you are traveling with someone and they don’t value the same things in the same way as you do, you can’t get mad at them for that. It is their prerogative and you have to deal with it.

When you travel, it is crucial to know what things are valuable to you.  Then you can spend your time doing those things and not worry about trying to do everything.  I find that if you try and do too much, you end up exhausted and not having really enjoyed your time in your destination. Knowing what you value helps you to focus on what is important to you and I think that helps you to have a better time.

 

What do you value when you travel? What are the things you refuse to do without while you are vacationing?