Travel Goals: The First Step to Constructing a Supercool/neat-o Itinerary

Traveling with Martin Kreese

The Goateed One in the Wilds of Tajikistan

When I travel I usually don’t consider it a vacation. I suppose if I define ‘vacation’ as being away from work, then, yes, traveling for me is a vacation. However, my travel philosophy is somewhere along the lines of Martin Kreese’s attitude toward karate: “strike first, strike hard, no mercy sir!” (for those of you who don’t know, Martin Kreese was the sensei of the Cobra Kai dojo in The Karate Kid). That doesn’t mean that I’m crane-kicking the locals in the places I’m traveling to, or that I don’t have fun at what I’m doing—after all, if you can’t enjoy yourself when you’re traveling then you’re really just wasting your time and money. What it means is that when I put aside the time and money to go somewhere, I want to soak every last experience out of the opportunity. I don’t know about you, but I only get two weeks a year vacation (my employer doesn’t buy the whole “I’m not on a vacation when I’m traveling” argument) and I certainly don’t have an unlimited reservoir of travel funds. That being the case, when it comes time to travel, I ask myself two very important questions, “where do I REALLY want to go?” and “what do I want to do when I get there?” Simple and obvious, right? Maybe, maybe not.

Priotities

I know plenty of people that want to go “everywhere.” Yes, “everywhere.” Does that mean Guatemala? Mongolia? The Philippines? Germany? Texas? Yes, all of the above. I’m not saying that I don’t want to go all these places. Traveling is my passion. Heck, if a genie appeared in my house with a never-ending sack of gold, I would phone in my resignation that instant, set out on a journey the next day and spend every other week in a new country. Unfortunately, the genie hasn’t put in an appearance yet. Hence, I have to decide what my travel priorities are. How do I do that? Well, it helps if you have studied up on places you might want to go to. In the travel game the three most important words are: information, information, information (In my last post I said I would be talking about this next...I lied). Suffice it to say, what getting all this information helps you do is make priorities, i.e. it helps you set travel goals.

The Travel Confessions of a Nerd

Vladimir Il'ich Rug, Bukhara, Uzbekistan

I just heard you snicker… “travel goals?” Yes, I have travel goals. There are certain places that I’ve decided are my priorities as far as time and money goes. If I happen to have either of those resources handy, or if the opportunity presents itself (through work, visiting a relative, etc.) then I’m going to fulfill one of these goals. One day I just opened a word document (your welcome for the plug Bill Gates) and started jotting down places I’d like to visit, organized by continent, country, region, town, sight, etc. A little lame I’ll admit, but I feel a great deal of satisfaction when I look back on my list and realize, “hey, I’ve been there,” and then I highlight the place in red font in my travel goal word doc (yeah, I know I’m a lame-o). You have other goals don’t you? Saving for the kids’ college/your retirement, buying a house, learning new skills? Then why not travel goals. Remember the old adage (or aphorism…something) about, “goals not written down…blah, blah…wont’ be achieved” (I paraphrase here). 

The Travel Wishes of a Nerd

For a little window into my travel wishes, I’ve listed some accomplished and yet to be accomplished travel goals for one of my favorite places to visit: Uzbekistan.

Asia

        Central Asia

                                Uzbekistan
                                                Bukhara
                                                                Poi Kalon Complex
                                                                Samani Mausoleum
                                                                The Ark
                                                                lunch at “Lyab-i Hauz”
                                                Khiva
                                                                Ichan Kala
                                            Nukus
                                                           Nukus Museum of Art
                                                           Aral Sea (nearby)
                                                Qo’qan
                                                                Khuodayar Khan’s Palace
                                                Samarqand
                                                                Bibi-Khanym Mosque
                                                                Gur-i Emir
                                                                Registan
                                                                Shah-i Zinda
                                            Tashkent
                                                            Amir Timur Museum
                                                            Fine Arts Museum
                                                            Kukeldash Madrasah
                                                            lunch at “Central Plov”
                                                

Turning Travel Nerd Goals into a Travel Nerd Itinerary

Islam Khodja Minaret, Khiva, Uzbekistan

I’ve spared you most of the gory details and only listed major tourist attractions, but here I have the places I want to visit--and restaurants I want to eat at--listed under the major city/region where they are located. You can see that as far as Uzbekistan goes most of my goals have been achieved. This has not been by accident. When the opportunity to travel to Uzbekistan arose, I was prepared with my goals, prioritized the places I wanted to visit and decided which places were logistically feasible to visit on the same trip. This helped me create my travel itinerary

For example, you can see that I have been to Samarqand, Bukhara and Khiva, the great old cities of the Silk Road. That is because travelers generally link them together and the transportation connections between Tashkent (the capital of the country with the international airport) Bukhara and Samarqand are convenient. Getting to Khiva is more of a pain, but there is a major regional airport there with links to Tashkent. In other words, the requsite tourist infrastructure exists in these places and it allowed me to hit them all in a couple weeks’ time. The only city on this list that I haven’t visited is Nukus. That’s because it is so far away from any other major sights. Hopefully I will get a chance to visit it one day (it’s one of my goals…sorry, just another plug for setting goals) but when I started to construct the itineraries for previous trips I realized that including it would eat up time I wanted to spend elsewhere. That is, I had to prioritize. I have also found that listing the places I want to go, in a visual manner, helps me think of how to put together an itinerary spatially and temporally.

So, set them goals, write them down, and when the genie appears you’ll know what to do!