Rhythm: Part 1 - life on the road

Kia ora. It’s nice to be back after a long-planned break away. This isn’t a travel blog so I won’t go into the many highlights and experiences! What I wanted to explore today is a two-parter on the rhythms of travel (during), and reflections on the week when you get back (after).

First up, I’m going to use the term rhythm loosely to describe our daily habits and rituals. I’m a big believer in having a rhythm to life, and to think of our year in seasons as I’ve written about when exploring annual planning previously

Something I think about annually is the idea of being intentional about having breaks. For me, this means having something to look forward to every 3 months of so (a long weekend or similar), having a longer break in the middle of the year (a week or potentially longer) and then a longer break which is usually the summer holiday that Christmas/New Year provides for the southern hemisphere.

The Longer Break and it’s role in life

I put travel into two distinct buckets and note that we all have different preferences. We are active travellers, which means that as a family, we like to pull together a trip of experiences. This doesn’t mean every day is full to the brim, but it does contrast to the chill out travel which could mean parking up somewhere with a pool and a book for days on end. It’s useful to be clear about the objective.

Being away for a longer break has the benefit of disconnecting you from work and the normal operating rhythm of life, alongside the stuff that is going on. It’s a hard stop on a lot of things and I find it a great reflection opportunity.

The travel becomes your life. Your days become dates (or even numbers like day 1, 2, 3 etc) and your normal routines and habits are turned on their head. In effect, it becomes a reset as your normal commitments are not there, you have a lot of free time and choice and time differences exacerbate the disconnect from your normal body clock.

You start a new rhythm.

The Travel Rhythm

This year we planned a longer break for July and deliberately sought some warmer weather overseas in Japan. We were away around 18 days, with around 3 days in each place and a view of getting to know the locations we were in (active travel).

We set a new rhythm. For us it involved getting up early, seeking breakfast and locking in a series of activities for the day. Some foraging around lunchtime and then finding an evening meal plus some evening activities. Sleep. Then do it all again.

Some elements of our rhythm that are good to think about:

(1) Food. Travel throws your diet in the air, particularly in a different country. I found it helpful to get into the habit of a good consistent breakfast to fuel the day. This was my chance to be a little mindful about what I ate, knowing that lunch would probably be a bit all over the place. We also made sure we had snacks on hand given we didn’t know where we would be when lunch would be. There were a couple of times where ‘hanger’ appeared and this was a good reminder to think about food. Lunch was more freelance, but we tried to find a good dinner to refuel. By the end of the trip, our food was quite routine and this helps with the broader rhythm.

(2) Sleep. We found that getting consistency in our sleep was foundational to avoiding being rundown and cracks appearing in our day-to-day activities. Holidays can be a time when all the sickness, stress and fatigue from the weeks prior come to a head. I usually find I am much more tired in the first week and it usually catches you out. We made sure that sleep was a priority.

(3) Movement. As I mentioned, we were definitely active travellers so this wasn’t really a problem. In fact, about halfway through the holiday our watches were all showing an average of around 20,000 steps a day which was a bit of a shock! I went away with a small stretching, bodyweight routine that could be done in a hotel room and found that doing something like this regularly was a good opportunity for some chill time. When we had access to a gym, I did this and a few other things just to keep ticking over. It does feel good to do something healthy while away and to move.

The last thing was a couple of ‘normal life’ habits. I had two things I wanted to do a little of every day - one was meditation and the second was studying Japanese on Duolingo. I paired these things together, usually as a morning habit, and used the streak function as a motivation to keep going. Spending a little time each day to sit still was bliss and learning a language we were hearing every day was fun.

My takeaways

Holidays are the time to relax and not to be too serious about things. That said, I think most people would say that a travel lifestyle is often not the most healthy lifestyle! It was good to not fall into complete chaos and I think our break was better for having a good travel rhythm. I came back refreshed, relaxed and healthy.

Having a rhythm took away a lot of moments where indecision takes up too much headspace and poor choices. It avoided days of fatigue that would have ruined our plans and experiences. It avoided us getting rundown and antsy at each other.

Flexibility is the key. You start your holiday with a blank page and slowly a rhythm develops. But you always need to be flexible with your day-to-day.

I’ll leave it there. Just some reflections and things I think I will keep in mind for whatever adventure comes next!

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