In planning large trips out of the country for the first time, it’s natural for you to want to invite close friends and family. You want people you know to share the fun with, to be frustrated with, to communicate with in your own language, and be able to reminisce on the trip with later. Having friends accompany you doesn’t always happen though (from talking to other travelers, it very rarely happens) and you should to be ready to travel solo. In this second part of planning for my Mexico Trip, I share why.
When I was first planning this trip, I contacted about 15 people I thought may be interested in going to Mexico back in August. By the end of the week I had about four people who said they were going to come, being seniors in college (and one immediate post grad) winter break is rather available and student loan money is endless. Over the course of the semester all the way to the week before the trip this crew of wanderers was slowly boiled to a solo act. Now it’s not that people just said “ahh nevermind” per se, it’s just that life easily gets in the way of saving $2000 to go away on a rough path for 25 days. One friend bought a car and another booked a spring break trip to Paris through the school, an arguably safer alternative than wandering Mexico (given what the news says). The post grad got her first job and learned that you don’t just call off for four weeks and that saving all that money in a semester is hard. My last partner booked a trip to Istanbul through the school and then had a subpar semester. With having to come up with a summer internship and figuring how to improve next semester, spending 25 days in Mexico not really knowing where you’ll sleep and eat doesn’t make the stress go away, at least not in theory.
If you are leading the preparation of the trip, do not stress over getting arrival times or room bookings together until tickets have been bought. Than likely non-refundable ticket is a seal of fate, and until fate has been sealed, stress not over anyone’s travel plans but your own. Be ready for such situations like I had as life happens. We can’t control everything that happens in our own live’s and definitely not that of others (unless you are some sort of dictator, and even still) so be easy. Everyone’s priorities are different and value traveling differently. Expect such situations to occur and be ever grateful when your friends can join you! Have you ever had friends who had to back out because life said no? Did you all go on a trip at a later time? Share in the comments below!