From Layoff to 7 Continents Week 7: The Part of Travel Rarely Posted
From Layoff to 7 Continents Week 7: The Part of Travel Rarely Posted
Travel isn't always glamorous.
The posts you see from a trip are the arrivals.
The view, the landing, the moment someone finally got where they were going.
What infrequently gets posted are things that went wrong on the way there, and what it took to keep going anyway.
I've been thinking about that this week, because the most useful skill I've built in three years of travel isn't packing, or budgeting, or finding the right flights.
It's flexibility.
And I've learned it the hard way more than once.
The Part of Travel Rarely Posted: When travel plans change, they change fast
Recently, I received the email nobody wants: my flight to and from Ushuaia had been changed by the airline.
Originally, I was scheduled to fly from EZE to USH in the early morning and USH to EZE after returning from Antarctica, whre I have a connecting flight several hours later to return to USA.
When I originally received the email, I was on the phone for several hours in the morning looking for options.
Hold times.
An app that wouldn't allow me to rebook for a couple of days/
An agent who couldn't provide flight options to fly into EZE from USH.
A phone and a lot of waiting.
Here's what I noticed, though.
The trip was never actually in danger. It felt that way for a few hours, but a schedule change is a solvable problem, and solving it cost me time rather than the trip itself.
After a few days, and a calmer mind, I rebooked my flight from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia at a later time.
Next, I booked an earlier from from USH to AEP to allow me enough time to transport to EZE to catch my connecting flight back to the USA.
The Part of Travel Rarely Posted: The Angel at Ibiza Airport
My flight change experience reminded me of the time I met a heroine in Ibiza.
The other story is older, and it's the one I think about more.
On my way back home from Ibiza, I realized I left my cellphone in the Uber I took to the airport.
I spoke to airport worker Marcela, frantic and stressed, that I was missing my cellphone.
After multiple calls and messages, I experienced difficulty getting in touch with the Uber driver.
Marcela said I could purchase another phone in Madrid.
I accepted that decision.
Then, a miracle happened.
Marcela met me at the gate when I was about to board the plane and handed by cellphone to me.
I immediately put my hands together saying "Gracias, gracias, muchas gracias, bless you, una angel."
Marcela didn't have to do any of that.
It wasn't her job, it wasn't her problem, and she got nothing out of it except a stranger making her flight.
Later, I sent an email to the airport praising her for her help and going above and beyond for helping me (and stating she deserved a raise).
I made that plane.
I stil have the photos from my holiday in Ibiza.
The Part of Travel Rarely Posted: What travel flexibility actually means
Flexibility gets talked about like a personality trait.
Some people are easygoing and some people aren't.
That hasn't been my experience.
In practice it's a set of habits, and habits can be built.
Separate the solvable from the lost.
A flight change is solvable.
A missed connection is solvable.
Almost everything that goes wrong on a trip is solvable, and panic costs more than the problem does.
The first question is always the same: is this actually broken, or is it just going to take longer than I wanted?
Build slack into the plan.
Buffer days, buffer hours, buffer money.
A rigid itinerary snaps under pressure.
A plan with room in it bends and keeps moving.
Know your options before you need them.
When an airline changes your schedule, you're usually entitled to a free rebooking and sometimes a refund.
Booking directly instead of through a third party means fewer layers between you and the person who can fix it.
None of that helps if you learn it during the phone call.
Ask for help earlier than feels comfortable.
I would not have made that flight in Ibiza if I'd spent another ten minutes trying to handle it alone.
The best thing that happened that day came from admitting out loud, to a stranger, that I was stuck.
Let the trip change shape.
Some of what I remember most didn't come from the plan.
It came from what happened after the plan fell apart.
The Part of Travel Rarely Posted: This is the same skill as starting over
Three years ago I was laid off.
I didn't choose that disruption either.
There was no version of it I could have prevented by planning harder or working later.
What I could choose was what came next, and that turned out to be the whole skill.
Not avoiding the change.
Adapting fast enough that it didn't take everything else down with it.
A flight change is a small version of that.
So is a phone in the back of an Uber.
So is a job that ends before you're ready.
The plan will break.
Life is what it is, full of ups and downs.
What you do in the hours afterward is the part that counts, and it's the part rarely posted.
Seven weeks out
Antarctica is getting closer and closer.
Something can happen that I'm not happy with.
I'd bet on it.
I frequently hear how important it is to be flexible while traveling to Antarctica.
The itinerary detailed in the brochure may not go as planned.
Flights might change again.
Antarctic weather can have an impact.
I'm planning for that instead of hoping around it, and after three years, that feels like the real progress.
If you're navigating a career change, a layoff, or a midlife reset of your own, this series follows the whole thing in real time — the preparation, the setbacks, and the mindset it takes to keep going when the goal is still far off.
When has a stranger helped you out of a travel mess?
Some of them never find out we're still telling the story.
Get the From Layoff to 7 Continents journal → LINK
Work with me 1:1 → LINK
Travel as Transformation.
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