Even the best-planned trips go sideways sometimes. Flights get canceled, luggage goes walkabout. The guesthouse that looked so wonderful on the website turns out to have a spider problem. While these moments may cause you conniptions in real time, they don’t have to be ruinous for your trip. In fact, given the right mindset and a few essentials in your planning, the worst travel stories can end up making the best anecdotes. After a respectful delay, anyway.
Following these tips will help you keep your cool, and your trip intact, even when the best laid plans fall victim to the universe’s tendency to chaos.
Assign roles before you need them
In any travel group, there will be a communal skillset and an understanding of who does what. Maybe one of you is a savant when it comes to logistics and route planning. Another is a skilled communicator and, potentially, bi- or even trilingual.
Someone else may be the cook and the one who knows what to buy in any supermarket in the world. Having these designations agreed upon saves time when things start to go wrong – you all know what to do.
The emergency toolkit
Nobody wants to bring anything extraneous on a trip, but having some things in an emergency kit – that will hopefully not be needed – can be a lifesaver. It should contain the following “just in case” items.
- Physical copies of documents: IDs, passports and itinerary
- A contingency payment purse (with cash because you never know)
- Offline maps, and hotel details both on paper and digitally saved
- Contact info for airlines, accommodation and any transport
- Emergency services number for the country/countries you’ll be visiting
- Details for a travel insurance provider that you’ve taken out a policy with. The likes of Generali can step in when you’re dealing with tricky situations.
Don’t catastrophize, you’re unlikely to need most of this. But there is a reason for the phrase “Better to have it and not need it…”
Emotional logistics
Not all emergencies are physical or health-related. For example, your train gets delayed (meaning you’ll miss a connection and may have to redraw plans) and you have to spend six hours in some town off the beaten track. Someone in your party needs to have packed their level head, especially if (as much as you love them) one member of your party is less than calm in a crisis. An emotional leader can make all the difference. Also, pack snacks. Being “hangry” is a real thing, and some emergency carbs can do the world of good.
Planning ahead won’t mean things don’t go wrong. But by having a shared approach you’ve all agreed upon, a few important backups, and a decent safety net can be the difference between a temporary glitch you all laugh about later, and a complete disaster that you never speak of again. Be ready, stay flexible and patient, and remember: some of the best days you’ll spend traveling begin with “Well, this wasn’t the plan”.
