5 Travel Mistakes I Made on Sabbatical (and How You Can Avoid Them)

There were times when it seemed like my year-long sabbatical around the world was an endless string of mistakes. This was especially true in my first couple of months on the road. Over time, I came to terms with the fact that I’m not defined by my mistakes. In fact, by the September day I realized I’d left my shampoo at a hostel after checkout, I barely batted an eye. I just made my way to a pharmacy on Admin Day and used my contingency budget for a new bottle.  At the same time, though, travel mistakes can add up to a lot of stress and a lot of extra money spent, so take a moment to learn from my worst. Here are my top 5 tips for how you can avoid my early sabbatical travel mistakes.

Tape a last minute checklist to your front door

I was devastated my first afternoon in Reykjavik when I realized I had left my everyday black cardigan hanging on the closet door at home. I wasn’t even 12 hours into my sabbatical and I’d already screwed up?! Fortunately, this was something that was easy and inexpensive to replace. But to leave behind something I use all the time, both at home and on the road, felt mind-numbingly stupid to me.

Whether it’s an extra layer for the plane or a toiletry you need before leaving, there are bound to be at least a couple things that won’t go in your bag until the last minute. Tape a checklist to your front door the day before you go. Bonus points for putting it on bright paper. Anything that will help grab your attention as you leave and keep you from forgetting a last-minute packing item.

Don’t rush off the plane

At the end of a long travel day, it’s natural to be eager to get out into the world. On flights, there’s also a sense of pressure from other passengers to move out as quickly as humanly possible, which can be a tall order when you’re in a middle or window seat and have baggage in the overhead bin.

Give yourself some lead time by gathering anything you’ve removed from your bags before the plane lands. When it’s time to get up, take a moment to double check your seat before taking your bag out of the overhead bin. The people behind you can deal. If I had taken even a couple seconds to look at my seat after landing in Barcelona, I wouldn’t have lost my sarong.

Before you leave any mode of transportation – plane, train, bus, or taxi – double check that you have all your belongings. And that goes triple for your hostel.

Take care of your chargers

The amount of stuff I either broke or lost in just three months was astonishing. It often seemed like the minute I repaired or replaced one item, another one bit the dust. In moments like those, I was so grateful I followed Katie Aune’s advice about adding 5% to your travel budget to cover contingencies like this. Nonetheless, it is frustrating to constantly have to troubleshoot your packing list.

The most frustrating thing by far on my sabbatical was an endless parade of phone chargers. I must have been doing something wrong because in just three months I went through four separate charger cables! The one I brought with me from home broke at the end of my first month. (Read about that disaster day here.) So I bought a cheap replacement. Surprise, surprise, the cheap replacement didn’t work. So I splurged on a nicer replacement, one with a woven cord. Surely that would last longer! Nope, after about six weeks, it started charging my phone about five times slower than usual. Once I made it to charger number four, I was determined to make that one count.

Treat your electronics with care. Be attentive to how you pack up your chargers and their cables so the wiring doesn’t get bent out of shape. I also wholehearted recommend packing a backup charger cable, just in case.

Look up directions before you arrive

My most stressful moments traveling were typically when I was trying to find my accommodations. That stress quadrupled anytime I turned up someplace near sunset and every passing minute put me closer to wandering around alone in the dark.

If you book on Hostelworld, nine times out of ten, your confirmation email will include directions to the hostel. These are written by the hostel staff, so the quality can vary. Sometimes they aren’t detailed enough and you’re better off using Google Maps. But many times, they will include things like landmarks, bus prices, or other details that make them better than Google Maps. Save your confirmation email and download a Google Map for offline use. I also like, as a backup, writing down my accommodations’ address on a piece of paper, so in a pinch I can find a taxi and hand it over.

Have a strong game plan the minute you set foot off the plane/train/bus. It will be less stressful and–as an added bonus–if you don’t look lost, you’re less likely to attract unwanted attention.

Don’t book too many things at once

Traveling long term means you have to make travel arrangements while you’re on the road. It can be tiresome to have to set aside time for travel planning every few days. I thought I was saving loads of time by booking a fast-paced month of travel all at once on my Admin Day. But I should have scheduled a few more deep breaths during that marathon booking session.

By booking tons of hostels and bus rides all at once, I lost sight of many details from minor ones, like which hostels only accept cash payments, to major ones, like what days I’d be in transit.

In the rush of trying to get everything done, I somehow managed to book an overnight bus ride and a hostel for the same night. I didn’t realize it until I was already past the window for the hostel’s cancellation policy, so I lost my entire payment for the night.

I also got just one of my travel dates mixed up, which threw off the entire rest of my itinerary. For the most part, I was able to correct this. But while all my hostel reservations got sorted out, I completely forgot to reschedule my bus from Split to Dubrovnik. I wasted hours tracking down an Internet cafe to print my ticket and then waiting for a bus that would never come before realizing my mistake. Getting a new ticket was simple, but it definitely hurt my budget (and my ego).

Read more about adjusting your sabbatical itinerary for last-minute changes.

Pace yourself

So much of this boils down to one crucial tip for better sabbatical travels: pace yourself! One of my biggest frustrations during a couple month of very fast paced travel was the sense that I kept making the same travel mistakes over and over. It’s hard starting over every few days.

After making all those mistakes, I was more than ready to slow down and spend month four of my sabbatical in just one place so I could regroup. From there, I focused on learning more about travel pacing and now I help my clients create well-balanced sabbatical itineraries that reduce these kinds of rookie travel mistakes!