There’s no way you can enjoy your holiday if you’re not fit and healthy. But did you know there are some pretty common travelling disorders out there that can negatively impact your holiday too?
These travelling disorders can dial a holiday down from an absolute 10/10 to a six or seven, and although they’re not fatal – thank God! – they’re definitely conditions you need to kick.
As they say, diagnosis is the first step on the road to recovery, so with that in mind, here are three of the most common travelling disorders that affect travellers.
Give them a read, see if you exhibit the symptoms, and then follow the cure to rid yourself of these nasty afflictions.
1. Facebook Addiction Disorder (FAD)
Travellers afflicted with FAD are pretty easy to spot.
They’re the ones glued to their smartphones in hotel/hostel lobbies and cafes, scrolling through their news feed with the intensity of a mouse on wheel.
Instead of actually talking to people and enjoying the moment, they’re content just posting selfies of themselves (which can sometimes kill!) and updating the world on what they had for breakfast that morning on Facebook.
True, it’s fun to update your friends and family on your travels, but doing it at the expense of actually enjoying where you are is definitely a bad habit you need to kick.
Cure: Turn the smart phone on Airplane Mode, or limit your social media intake to just 25 minutes a day.
2. Excessive Organisation Disease (EOD)
This non-fatal disease can really suck the life out of your travels, turning what should be an enjoyable holiday into a military-like mission, completely devoid of fun, where you try as hard as you can to tick off as many attractions/sites/places as you can in the shortest amount of time possible.
Sure, it’s great to plan what you’re going to see/do/experience once you land, but don’t forget that a holiday is meant to be relaxing and enjoyable.
Excessive planning also means you won’t have room in your itinerary for those spontaneous encounters or opportunities that usually come to be the highlights of the trip.
Cure: As people with EOD tend to overestimate what they can do in a single day, a simple cure here is to cross out every second item on the itinerary, which will give you a much more realistic schedule to stick by, whilst also giving you a bit of free time to do things on a whim.
3. Obsessive Packing Disorder (OPD)
Overpacking is one of those travelling disorders that we’re all guilty of from time to time, and it’s easy to find yourself under its spell – it’s just so easy to find your suitcase bulging at the seams as your mind races through all the possible future scenarios you just might find yourself in on your holiday.
Speaking from experience, about 90 percent of those scenarios will never – ever – materialise, and even if they do, you can usually just buy what you need abroad.
Cure: Lay out everything you think you need to take with you, and reduce it by half. Then reduce it by a third and pack the rest.
*These “travelling disorders” were completely made up and should not be treated as actual medical advice!