Preparing for Longer Trips

Longer term travel, especially longer term adventure travel, such as doing the El Camino, is not just prepare for a week, wash and repeat.  Usually, long term travel is harder on your body AND your mind.  Sometimes it will actually feel like a ‘job’!  On the podcast (player above or on any podcast app), we dive deep into how to prepare for longer term travel holidays.  Below is the summary, with a focus on adventure travel.  If you want my complete Long Term Travel Checklist, you can see it HERE.

Prepare Your Mind and Body for Long Term Travel and Adventures

Anyone can do anything for a week.  But when you have committed to doing something for longer, it can indeed become work.  You may have a particularly challenging day, but then you have to get up and the morning and tell your body that you have to do it AGAIN!  And then again, etc.  This can be really hard.  So it is important to train your brain for this change.  Here are some tips to prepare your brain and mindset for the challenges of big adventures:

Training Tip

• Set your training schedule and then execute even when the weather isn’t condusive.  Nasty cold rain?  Suck it up, because when you are on your adventure, the weather gods may deal your the same cards.  It’s a great opportunity to test out your gear, too!  Training when you don’t feel like it will help you to train your mind to do things you don’t want to do.  You will need this skill on long term adventures (and it helps you in the rest of your life as well!).
• Need training help?  Contact my affiliate Becki at Trailblazer Wellness for a free phone consult to see if you are a good fit for a custom, online training program tailored for you and whatever you’ve got planned.  Tell her Kit and ATA sent you, for a 10% discount.

Mindset when doing something HARD

• Become an Elephant Eater.  How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.  Divide and conquer by breaking your training into chunks.  I like to use percentages.  Let’s say I need to do 10 reps of horrible interval training.  After each one, I mentally check off the 10% accomplished.  Soon I’ll be a quarter way done, then a third done, halfway done [now I know I’ve got this] and eventually into the homestretch.
• Little Wins.  Bring your goals down to the micro level, or as small as you need to so that you KNOW you can accomplish your goal.  Think your body is dead and aren’t sure you can make it to the top of this mountain?  See that patch of shade up there?  Are you confident you can make it to there?  That’s your goal.  And when you get up there, now pick another micro goal and reach that.  Eventually, you will make it to the top.  Just keep kicking the ball a little closer to the goal with each move.  This works on projects as well as movement.
• Reward yourself.  Whether training, or doing something hard, or just something you simply don’t want to do, giving yourself little (or big!) rewards can help you to reach your goal.  I hate doing interval training.  So when I do it like I’m supposed to, I may treat myself to the movies or a pedicure.  I don’t get the treat unless I do the work.
• Remember your WHY.  Let’s say you’ve decided to do the El Camino.  Most days are great, but there will be days that your feet and back hurt, it’s too hot, and all sorts of things are just going wrong.  You hate it and you wish you weren’t plodding along when you could be all clean and relaxing at a cafe with a cold one.  This is when you have to remember WHY you chose to do this in the first place.  Something motivated you, so concentrate on that, as well as:
• Visualize your Success!  Visualization has been proven to work.  Your brain sometimes can’t tell what is real or imagined.  So in as great of detail as you can, imagine what it’s going to be like when you summit Kilimanjaro, or make it to Santiago de Compostela, or whatever your goal is.  Bask in your success and use this as a motivation to keep going.
• Never quit on a bad day.  There are going to be bad days.  Probably lots of them.  Unless you are seriously hurt, on the days you feel like quitting, give yourself permission to quit, but ONLY after you’ve had another good day.  You might find that on a good day, you really don’t want to quit afterall.   A dear friend of mine quit her AT thru hike on a bad day and has regretted it since.  I also believe that if you give yourself permission, it helps to quiet the relentless monkey brain that is internally harping on your to quit NOW.  [NOTE:  I use this ‘permission technique” for spending money on things I want but don’t need.  I tell myself I can have it after thirty days.  90+% of the time, the desire has vanished within the thirty days.  This has saved me thousands of dollars in wasted purchases!]
• Reframe your Mind.  Abraham Lincoln famously stated that folks are about as happy as they make up their mind to be.  YOU are in control of your feelings.  YOU decide how you are going to feel and react to any given situation.  When things totally suck and you have every right to feel miserable, YOU can either tell yourself, “I’m miserable. This sucks!”, or you can tell yourself, “I’m a badass and I can take it!”  It’s even better when you can feel rebelious:  “You think this nasty, cold rain and mud, sucks?  Ha!  Bring it on!  I got this!”  YOU control whether you FEEL demoralized or empowered.
• Remember your Sense of Humor.  Alright, I agree there are some times when truly EVERYTHING is going wrong.  It does suck and you can’t believe that it could possibly suck any worse.  This is when it’s time to bring out the big guns:  your sense of humor.  Fine a reason to LAUGH at this ridiculousness.  And remember:  one day you really will look back on this, and you will laugh and you will LOVE recalling how awful it was.  This may very well turn out to be your favorite story of your adventure!  So you might as well try to find the humor in it now.

Packing Tips and Gear for Long Term Travel 

Practice with your Gear

I cannot more strongly emphasize how important it is to try out your gear before your trip.  I’m not talking about taking it out of the box and trying it on.  I mean USING your rain jacket in a torrential rain.  Hiking twelve miles with a loaded pack.  Does the strap hit you funny?  That’s fine for a week out, but that minor irritation can be a royal irritant over the coarse of several weeks.  Ditto your hiking shirt and pants.  Do they chaffe?  Can you set up your tent in the rain or in the dark, or both?  Does your tent breathe or does it sweat( and if it does, get a different one!)?  All of your gear should be an old friend before you head out.  This is NOT the time to wear brand new boots!  Try them out in as comparable terrain as you can find before you go and get many miles on them to make sure they don’t rub you wrong ANYWHERE!  And allow for foot swelling, too.  I buy mine a half size too big for this reason.  

Long Term Packing List

I have developed my own long term packing list that gets me on moderate temperature travels and adventures that include ‘city’ stays.  Click on the box to get my complete list and access to ALL of the Travel Planners I have put together for every adventure covered on the Active Travel Adventures podcast.

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Get access to the Long Term Packing checklist and ALL Travel Planners HERE!

There are a few items I find particularly helpful for long term travel that I wouldn’t bother packing for shorter trips:

Super lightweight portable clothes line

This 1.3 ounce clothesline stretches to over 11′.  The double lines use tension and rubber sliding balls to ‘clip’ your clothes to the line.  Perfection!

Cooling Neck Gaiter

You can suffer the heat for a week, but if you are going to be out for weeks, I’d recommend packing a cooling neck gaiter!  When wet, these lightweight gaiters cool down THIRTY DEGREES!!!  Wear around your neck, or over your head (even as a dust mask) to help bring down the heat.  

Thanks to Noma F, my favorite travel gadget guru, for turning me on to most of these items!  They will help make your long term adventures much easier!

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