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Travel Stress Tips

Use these travel stress tips to keep your cool when
India gives you more than you bargained for.

Travel Stress Tips #1: Lavender

Lavender is so great for packing, I should have given it its own page! It’s featured on the budget travel page as a method of warding off bedbugs, but it’s also a calming herb, so you can put a little daub on each temple if you have a headache or are feeling stressed. It's also great as an antiseptic and more, so you can happily put it on cuts/grazes etc--all round very useful! I put it in the shop but you can also often get it at the drug store/chemist.

Travel Stress Tips #2: Rescue Remedy

Rescue Remedy is a Bach flower-essence that I use when I travel. Whether or not you believe it works, what can it hurt to put a few drops under your tongue when something stressful or upsetting occurs to give you a shock, like the time I nearly got decapitated by the yoke of a bullock cart—eek! I put the smallest size (all you'd need--you only use up to 7 drops at a time) in the shop , but again, some drug stores/chemists or health food stores may have it.

Travel Stress Tip #3: Earphones for Hassle-Free Walking

For the first few times you go to India, enjoy the experience of the street hawkers and shopkeepers calling to you. It’s part of the fun. But some days, it’s just all ‘a bit much’. I had one of those days in Goa, where the hotel where I went for a yummy 5 star buffet breakfast was about a 15-20 minute walk from where I was staying. I did this walk each day for about 10 days while I was staying there, so that’s about 20 trips past the same shops with the same men hanging out the front yelling the same sales spiels to me. I didn’t want to buy anything, because strangely, all the stuff there was stuff that was Kashmiri and Punjabi, and I could buy all that much more easily and cheaply in Delhi. So it finally dawned on me to just put in my earphones and cruise to the music instead. Why did it take so long—probably because I usually listen to music for the purpose of enjoyment, not for the purpose of avoiding what’s going on around me. But some days it’s just required!

Travel Stress Tips #4: Don’t Ask Directions

Some things that would boggle a Westerner’s mind are normal in India. Here is one of those things…If you ask an Indian for directions, it is impolite for them not to respond, whether they know the answer or not. Which means if you ever need to ask directions, there is no way to know up front whether the directions they give you are good or if they’re just making them up. I found this out the hard way on my first trip to India. My friend and I got lost but we knew we were in the right general area, it was just there were a lot of little lanes and we’d taken a wrong turn somewhere. Our friends were waiting and we were very late. We only realized after we’d been pointed in several different directions by successive people we’d asked, that they clearly had less idea than we did about where we had to go. Here’s how we eventually found the place we needed—we thought of the nearest landmark to our destination, which in this case was a nice hotel and caught a taxi there!

Travel Stress Tips #5: Acceptance

Actually, this is the big one. India is like nowhere you’ve ever been before. Things that make no sense to you will be normal there. And some things are likely to happen whether you like it or not. For example, most people I know (myself included), get sick sometime in their first week in India. My (amateur) understanding is that it’s your body getting used to the different environment—different air, water, food, etc etc). If you’re aware of this in advance, then it won’t ruin your plans. (The good news on this one is that it seems to happen only on your first trip—once your body knows India, it’s fine ever after, I think). I’ve only been seriously sick that once, and same with everyone else I know. I’ve had nothing worse than a cold in my many subsequent trips.

Travel Stress Tips #6: More Acceptance

This is probably the most important tip I can give you. Just when you think you’ve really got the hang of India and you’re a pro, something will happen to knock your confidence, or one day you may just feel overwhelmed at the 100th beggar who gets in your face, or too many people in too small a space. These moments are all part of being in an unfamiliar culture and will be part of your growth as a person. You will not return home the same person if you have your eyes opened by India. Your challenge is to accept all the experiences gratefully, even the ones you think are negative.

Travel Stress Tips #7: Reverse Culture Shock is Real

You probably won’t experience it on a two week quick break, but my first trip to India was for around 2 months, living with locals and immersing myself in the culture, as opposed to observing it as a tourist. Luckily I was aware of reverse culture shock, so when I went home and it happened to me, I knew what was going on. When you see the things you see in India, it’s difficult sometimes to go back home and keep the same opinions you left with. And that’s the beauty of India—it can get in your head and your heart, so when you go home you see home with new eyes, for better or worse, or both. Let’s just say you can get an awful lot of perspective in India.

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