Hey Steemians 🙂
When I was 15 I met my husband. This time, he lived in north-eastern Germany and I lived in southern Germany. About 1000 km apart from each other.
We had a long distance relationship for several years before we finally moved together.
But after living in southern Germany together for 3 years (this time about 200 km away from my family), we decided that we wanted to move to the coast of the Baltic Sea in northern Germany. We both felt like southern Germany just isn't our soul home and my heart always felt so connected to the Baltic Sea. I wanted to live there for a long time.
So we moved to Rostock, which is about 1000 km away from my hometown and family. Now I have my husband around me, but need to drive about 1000 km to see my family instead.
As you can see, I am used to have loved ones across the whole country and I am used to travel a lot since I am a teenager 🙂
I almost always travel by train, especially the very fast ICE train we have in Germany. As a journey across the whole country takes many hours (between 9 and 13, sometimes even longer, depending on the connection) and I had to travel pretty often, I had a lot of time finding good methods on how not to become bored while travleing alone.
And as I am going to visit my family again soon, I thought about these things to remember what I could do while sitting in the train for hours and what I need to buy in advance and take with me.
Maybe you also like to travel and my list inspires you.
I would be happy to make your journey more pleasant 🙂
So here are my tips on how to have a funny journey instead of counting the minutes until you can leave the train/bus/plane... again:
I hope you enjoy!
1. Look around and watch your fellow travelers. Get creative and use your time to train your fantasy! How about imagining a story to the most interesting looking ones? Who are they? Where are they from? What job do they have? Why do they wear what they wear? Have they secret talents/super powers/weird hobbies...? Why are they sitting in the same train/bus/plane...? You can even grab your notebook and write down poems, short stories or other funny stuff inspired by the experieces you make and people you meet while traveling. This is an amazing way to keep your travels in memory. I sometimes imagined such weird and funny stories that I actually had to bite my tongue to not laugh out loud. Sounds strange, is damn much fun
2. Use streaming services which offer to watch offline and you can watch some great movies and maybe even your favourite series on your smartphone. My husband and me use amazon prime
3. Listen to an audiobook or listen to your favourite music, look out of the window and daydream
4. When you belong, like me, to the people who love to just look out of the window and you travel by train, bus or car, you could make notes on your map which parts of the route and areas you like the most. Whenever I discovered a place that looked special to me and I could maybe want to travel to one day, I wrote it down to remember the nicest locations on my route. Once I discovered a stunning bridge the train drove on, that was situated just right above the crowns of the trees of the forest under it. Especially in fall, when all the leaves were all colors from green, orange and red to yellow, this was a true spectacular to watch and I even set my alarm clock every time I traveled the route, just to mak sure I'll see the tress under us in case I fall asleep. It just looks like floating and I simply love this view!
5. “The ABC of everything“ is something to kill time and train cogitation at the same time. Just take a topic of your choice and count one thing in that category per letter of the ABC. Like: „Countries: Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Ecuador, France...“ or „Music styles: Ambient, Blues, Country, Deep House, Electro, Folk music,...“
6. Creativity is life! And we are way too less creative during all the every day life, appointments, duties and all that stuff. Grab your sketch block and draw or paint something beautiful. Maybe even something that your journey inspired you to, so you'll have an amazing artwork that reminds you of your journey. You can also just doodle around a bit, it's so much fun and you sometimes create funny things by doing so
7. You don't like drawing but want to be creative anyways? How about knitting, crochet or doing DIY presents like juwelery or mojos or other beautiful gifts for your loved ones?
8. Look for people who travel alone and look bored too and start a conversation. This is a great way to make time go by very fast, meet amazing new people, hear a lot of cool stories and get isnpired. And who knows, maybe you even meet new friends or actually your soulmate? Life's full of surprises! 🙂
9. You have some work for university, college, your job/self-employment to do or other things to organize but never really had the time or nerves the last days? I noticed that I can learn and work very good while traveling as I feel so full of energy and so inspired. Some trains here, such as the ICE, also offer you some W-LAN
10. Read a book in a language you want to imrove or learn a foreign language
11. If you travel abroad: Inform yourself about the culture, habits, laws, ethics, religion, and all the important things of the country you travel to. This wakes up anticipation even more and you learn how to make the best out of your trip by learning about the people of the country
12. Do some brainstorming: Great ideas, philosophical questions of life, ideas for your bucket list, cool new hobbies to try...
13. Close your eyes, put your headphones on and listen to a guided meditation or fantasy journey to relax and recover from any stress of the last weeks or that may have occured while traveling
14. Make some amazing photos and send them to your friends to let them be part of your journey, post them later in your blog or to watch them with your loved ones on an amazing „travel-photo-evening“ with some good food.
15. Write down what you're grateful for, what makes you happy, and which things you are good at and you're proud of. This is a perfect mood boster on long and exhausting travels and a good way to keep your mindset positive, even if there is a lot of noise and stress around you
Do you have any cool ideas and things you do that make travelling by train, bus, plane and co. more exciting?
I am grateful to add some new and funny points to my list!
Lots of love and light,
Linda