How to travel in times of coronavirus?

The world is closed down due to the appearance of the coronavirus, and most of us are locked in our homes hoping that spring will bring some changes. While changes are hopefully on the way, I decided to share my travel tips for lockdown on how to travel in these challenging times…

I know I already provoked different reactions with the title of this article and that was also the idea because I do believe that this isolation time is perfect for traveling. Where? Inside ourselves and to the most distant corners of our consciousness. How many times have you been there during the quarantine already? And did you like what you saw?

Gifts are always good

It feels a bit strange to say that loud, but I must confess – I love this time! And I see it as a fantastic gift given to humans from above – to stop, look back, take decisions in peace and get a better life in the future. However, there is no change in the world that comes easy. That’s why alongside this gift comes death, misery and fear.

I have been thinking, why is it always like that? I guess the answer is in the very strange characteristic that we humans have – we don’t know how to change when everything is good, even if we know the change is necessary. I have experienced it so many times in my own life. I have missed a bus or an important event due to arriving late and promised myself to never ever be late again…well, this held maybe for a few weeks. There has also been this one time when I missed my plane from Brazil to Europe. My good friend’s family (who had hosted me) got extremely worried and stressed about it, which made me feel so bad about it. I made a promise to myself never to be late again. Well, it lasted for almost a year – the longest time not being late in my life.

Conclusion: The bigger the hurtful punch, the bigger the changes are and the longer they last. Well, I guess the power above us has made that conclusion too, so there was no other way it could make the world change than sending us, or better said, making ourselves provoke this monstrous virus. And see the results!

From one day to another

We have been talking about doing something about climate change, reducing flights, using more public transport and fewer cars, eating more climate-neutral foods, consuming less in general, being more connected to family and friends – we did all the talking but no action. Now flying has become as rare as many years ago – almost from one day to another. We talk to our friends and family members almost every day even though it’s by phone and video calls. I know a few people who, scared by the coronavirus, started to eat healthily, and the list goes on. Some of these changes, such as reduced physical traveling, are truly frustrating, indeed, but, we can still keep traveling – just inside ourselves. A real traveler will always find a way.

Taking into consideration that this is a travel blog with a focus on tips about unknown activities in different places of the world, I don’t want to descend this path even now. Therefore I want to come up with some tips about how to enjoy your trip in your inner world to the maximum. Those are tips that are working for me, making this time not only enjoyable but also fruitful and hopefully, this will help you too.

How Do You Packing for the Internal Trip?

The first 3 tips are about packing, cause as it happens with every trip, there are some very important belongings you can’t do without. In the internal trip case, these are: clear and energized mind, discipline and mental space.

Early mornings – creative mornings

Now that I am talking a lot with my friends all over the world over WhatsApp and ZOOM, some of them reply to my WhatsApp messages at 3 or 4 am in their respective countries, as I usually see them the next day. I have been asking them why they are not going to bed earlier, and they say there is no reason to. And then the conversation goes on about how hard this coronavirus time is and how depressed they are. On the other hand, I have friends who’ve decided to wake up early anyway, to keep the normality and they seem to be very happy during this time. You can choose what works best for you.

And what is the best secret to waking up early? Go early to bed. It is as simple as that! But nowadays it’s not simple at all, cause our phone checking without a reason routine takes up hours before we get to sleep, and sometimes our intention to be asleep by 23.00 no matter what turns into 00……. Unfortunately has happened to me quite many times, so no judgment to you from my side. And that leads us to tip number 2:

Intermittent fasting of….the internet!

For some of my friends, intermittent fasting, which refers to having meals spread among 8 hours a day and letting the body rest for food intake for the remaining 16 hours, works really well to keep them healthy, fit, and happy. For me, it doesn’t work so well, as I get so hungry in the mornings, so early breakfast just after morning yoga/fitness work out and a cold shower is a must. But then I thought of intermittent fasting as a very clear boundary for other types of intakes. For instance, intake of information and interaction versus peace, me-time, and traveling inside myself. Step by step I have been introducing this concept into my daily life and I must say that it really works miracles, because it gives a feeling of more additional hours to the day than before. The day is also spent in a more versatile way.

You know what I believe – that the next breakdown similar to the pandemics we experience now in the world will happen when the internet will break down, because we waste so much time on it, even though we know it very well and are already concerned. But the power of habit is too strong and we can’t change it even if we want to. So I would not be surprised if something like that happened. However, no matter how hard it is, it is worth taking action right now, not waiting for the breakdown.

Cold is bold

If you ask me how to pull yourself together to do this kind of “packing” when your motivational part of yourself also is in quarantine, my answer is to do that with the cold showers that last at least one minute. It’s quick, it’s powerful, it’s energizing, and after it’s done, you feel like you can achieve just about anything. And that’s when you can introduce the two previous tips and finally start traveling inside yourself.

The internal travel starts with checking out the place

Can you still remember from your physical travels, how you drop off your stuff in a hotel room upon arrival and quickly go out to get the first impression of the place? Why not do it with your internal world? How? Instead of a camera, use paper and a pen and write down all that you have done in your life, what you are doing now, and what you want to do in the future. And most importantly after each statement write – why? The answer to why is the key to realize who you are, what your motivations are, and are your actions complying with your dreams. It’s time to realize whether your life is going as a meaningless autopilot or each step takes you closer to your dreams.

Merge in the adventure

I am sure we all will find something that we do on autopilot and something that takes us closer to our dreams. But why not make the shift towards the direction the dreams as the main path and minimize the autopilot action to the very minimum? Besides, this corona time is the best time to do that as compared to any other occasion. Why? Because probably for the first time in our lives, we realize that there are so many things we can do without, that can save our money, time and energy which we all can invest in our dreams.

Lesson from Soviet times

In my case, it is happening for the second time in my life because until I was 6 years old, I lived in the Soviet Union. It was definitely not a good time for democracy and self-identification of my country, as we were occupied by communists who didn’t consider our will at all. However, there’s always something good in every bad situation. And the good in the Soviet Union was that it was impossible to buy most of the everyday things. Shops were completely empty and borders to more abundant places were closed. But did we get depressed about it? No way! We got more creative. No toilet paper in the shop? No worries. The old newspapers were gathered and cut into small pieces and put in the WC. It was just a good idea to crumple them before use, to have a more soft experience. And if the face of a hated Soviet politician was on that little crumpled piece of paper, it evoked true pleasure – one of the few ways to protest freely against our suppression without fear of being put in jail.

No cleaning detergent in the shop? Vinegar and baking soda could not only clean the surfaces but also be used for washing hair and body. No toys for kids to play? There were plenty of small stones, tree branches in nature free of charge and with no poisonous particles in them. And the list goes on.

We, humans, need so little to survive, but unfortunately, unlike other animals, we need such huge breakdowns to realize that. So use corona time to drop all the unnecessary stuff you normally buy and use the time and money to build your dreams!

Everything consists of molecules…or steps

Have you ever thought of a very successful person who has built a dream business or has a great career or another mind-blowing achievement? Have you been wondering how many steps this person took to arrive there? I have. And my conclusion is that no matter how many steps it took for each one, it was the most suitable amount of steps for this person to achieve the goals and become capable to deal with the success.

And the additional conclusion I have driven – no matter how big success is, there is always a determined number of steps to it, never an endless road.

In case you want to test if my conclusions are right, you can try them out. And we can even do it together by beginning to figure out what steps we need to take to start going towards our dreams. Even though we cannot predict the exact amount of those steps, we can identify them and divide each step into 10, 20, or even 100 smaller steps or substeps so that the complicated dream is divided into so many nanoparticles, that each of them seems as simple as taking a sip of water. And at this moment magic happens. We realize that the path to success is possible and this path is not imperceptible and overwhelming and even more importantly – there are small steps we can do right now to start the adventure.

Time to reflect

From each physical trip, we bring back souvenirs or new realizations and it’s no different here. In this case, we will maybe have thousands of souvenirs – lists of steps that we have broken down for ourselves. And the bonus souvenir – the liberation of everything that holds us back from fulfilling the goals. But unlike with physical souvenirs that we in the best case put on the doors of the fridge and other places for dust to sit on, the souvenirs from our internal journey can be used to make even a bigger journey, probably a lifelong, towards our dreams and our true self. And these souvenirs have a priceless value. Besides, no dust will ever sit on them.

So did you like your internal tour? I hope that soon I will see your souvenirs;-)