Jet lag, like hangovers, worsens with age. But the pounding head and sleepless nights don’t compare to the pit of depression that is the post travel blues.

It’s now been a whole week since we’ve been back from our six-week-long honeymoon in Europe, and I’ve got it bad. We spent the first few days walking around in a trance, dazed and confused to be back at work, back at home. Happy but overwhelmed to be surrounded once again by friends and family. Well-rested but exhausted with the real world. Yes, our sleep cycles have finally returned to normal – but something still isn’t quite right. I’ve got to cure these blues. Continue reading →

It is now only 11 days ’til we leave – unable to contain the butterflies in my belly any longer, I decide to attempt the trial pack.

We drag the suitcases out of storage; a ripe, stacked babushka for those more inclined to airplanes than dolls. I open the suitcases after too many (long) years of hibernation… and it hits me. The heady musk of travel. I reel at that familiar, favourite scent, the unzippered bag grinning at me as the memories flood back; one whiff and I’m back in Oslo, hauling the stuffed red cases onto a jolting tram and trying to no avail to keep them upright; in Chiba, unpacking them on tatami mats at a Ryokan near the black shores of the North Pacific; and in Koh Yao Noi, desperately rummaging through them for mosquito repellant in the tropical Thai heat. Continue reading →

If you’re anything like me, the excitement of a holiday either hits you hard at the very last minute, as leave work on a Friday afternoon at 6pm before you board a 10pm flight — or you spend six months counting down to it, crossing off the calendar days, triple-checking the weather forecast, picking out movies on the in-flight entertainment program in advance. There is no happy medium, no sliding comfortably into the warm knowledge of an upcoming trip. It’s butterflies-in-the-belly one way or the other. It’s silly, really, to get so worked up over a holiday, but I can’t help it. I have the travel bug bad.

I find the only way to combat the mind-churning, heart-pounding, sleepless nights, is to do a brain-dump, and make a checklist. With just a few weeks to go, these are a few things that I need to tick off – perhaps you should add these to your list as well? Continue reading →