Opportunistic Traveling

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Is there anything better than taking a random trip somewhere on a long weekend break? We love just being spontaneous and leaving it until the last minute to take trips. Of course, when you are looking at international travel, for the most part you need to plan in advance because you are likely going to need to take time off work, organize your activities and make reservations.

RoadTrip

Ok, so maybe we are not the most spontaneous of travelers in that sense. I was tweeting with someone the other day about this and asked them if they had ever traveled to the airport and randomly selected somewhere from the departure board and purchased tickets. Their response was similar as they had used the Skyscanner app and selected a destination of ‘Everywhere’. This is a great way of indicating your desired travel dates and then allowing the World Wide Web to locate the best deals for that time range you specified.

mateus1

What do we truly mean by Opportunistic Traveling? We all have opportunities to do things, whether it is traveling or in any other sense of the imagination. We have to take advantage of these opportunities and pursue our dreams. Many people have told us that now is the time to travel before we decide to have children because things will change a lot and your ‘opportunities’ will diminish. I can accept that but only to a certain extent. I prefer to think about it like it would open up more avenues to explore the world given the places that would be kid-friendly are not necessarily the spots we would choose to go now. E.g. Disney World.

opportunity

If we combine the word opportunity with travel, there you have today’s topic – opportunistic traveling. It’s all about taking advantage of the options you have available to you. We would certainly encourage people to have savings for emergencies and of course there are other things in life that you need to focus on, but don’t let all of these get in your way of exploring the hidden world that is out there. From my experience in Arkansas (Any Arkansans out there reading this, please do not take any offense), many of the folks living here know nothing outside of their State. I am sure this is the case with many of the other states and in fact I would go as far to say as this is a feasible mentality around the world, though many people don’t have any other option.

Why don’t they get out and travel more? Well, it’s just the norm apparently that people just stay around their own dwellings and surroundings and the old adage that ‘Why do I need to go anywhere because everything I need is right here’ is a philosophy that prevents people from really enhancing their travel experiences.

This post is all about encouraging people around you to broaden their horizons. Why stay at home when you have the chance to explore? Take advantage of the travel opportunities that lay right in front of you. Go out on random trips, pick a destination and just go there – you never know, you may be pleasantly surprised at how much you enjoy it.

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Chris Boothmanhttps://abritandasoutherner.com
Chris Boothman is the co-founder of A Brit and A Southerner. Born near Manchester, England, Chris moved to USA in 2006 where he soon after met his wife and travel partner in crime, Heather. They have since embarked on an amazing journey of travel as they challenge others to follow in their paths of working full-time but also being able to travel frequently! If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact Chris at [email protected]

4 COMMENTS

  1. Hi Chris, that’s a very good topic! I once, unexpectedly, had a 4 day weekend and went to Gatwick airport. There were no fancy mobile apps at the time, but I went to an agency at the airport and asked for flights somewhere in Europe, no more than 3 hours from London. What did they find that fit my budget?? Paris! Well, great place, but less adventurous than I expected.

    As for those folks who never even get out of their neighbourhood… They literally don’t know what they’re missing!

    • It’s funny you mention Paris as we are heading there for the first time at Christmas this year for a few days! Flying into Heathrow and then taking the Euro Tunnel to Paris.

      I actually feel really bad for those folks that just stay wrapped up inside their own little world. You are right that they don’t know what they are missing but if they would just open up and accept that there is so much more out of their little box, they would see the magnitude of amazing sights on offer around them.

    • It’s still on our bucket list also! The idea of using a random flight generator such as Skyscanner is really cool but I really think that when you get to the airport and you have to make that call, it may not be as easy as think. This will really test your open-mindedness I think!

      Kudos to anyone that can make this step and I would be really interested to hear where folks have ended up when adopting this strategy. I am hopeful that we can do this sometime soon!!!

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