We’ve been traveling around the world full time now for over two years and I want to share with you some of our daily, weekly, and monthly routines that have helped make life, and especially a traveling life, less stressful and more fun. I’d love to hear if you use any of these, or any I didn’t mention, that you swear by in your own life.
A little introduction, I’m Kathy. My husband and I are a semi-retired couple in our fifties who got rid of all of our worldly possessions in 2024 so we could travel the world full time. We’ve had the time of our lives but, as with anything, it has also been a learning experience. Here’s a few tried and true things we do to stay grounded and take care of our mental and physical health in an, anything but “routine”, lifestyle.
Routine 1: Completely unpack on day one
As long as we’re going to be in a place for longer than a few days, we completely unpack our suitcases and start putting things away the first full day we’re there.
We each open both of our bags on the bed and go through everything. We take everything out of the bags and evaluate whether or not we’re going to use it at this location. If we’ve landed in the tropics, we’re not going to be needing our beanies and wool sweaters, so we put those things back in our suitcase to store. The luggage is then put away and, with rare exception, not opened again until we’re packing to leave.
Then we divide up the space. We’ll divide up closet space, shelf space, drawers, and we decide who’s going to put what where. Then we put our things away, everything has its place, and you don’t have to keep diving into your luggage.
Next we set up our bedside tables. We take out the books we’re reading, sleep masks, book lights, all of the things that help make this new place home.
Before we established this routine, we used to unpack bit by bit and just keep our bags nearby, dipping into them to get things out every now and then, whenever we needed them. We initially thought this was more efficient but we found that we ended up never really feeling settled in this way, and always looking for things caused a lot of underlying and unnecessary stress.
That’s one of the things about these routines. Even if they seem small, not doing them can have an outsized impact on your mood.
Routine 2: Stock the house
Within the first 24 to 48 hours after arriving we stock the house. Sometimes this can feel like a chore, especially when you’ve just spent a dozen or more hours getting there, but we’ve learned the longer you wait the longer it takes to feel relaxed and at home. Being able to pour a glass of wine or make a sandwich at the drop of a hat does wonders for your sense of relaxation when you’re somewhere new.
Of course we’re mostly talking about food here, but we’re also talking about those little comforts that make your stay more pleasant. For example, we like to sleep in a cold room. So, one of the first things we do is check to make sure there’s some cozy blankets for us, and if not, we’ll request some from the host or make a home shopping note.
One apartment we rented in Osaka had all plastic dishes. And I do mean all! Even the coffee mugs were plastic. Yuck! So the next day we went out, picked up a couple ceramic mugs and ceramic bowls. Another thing we like is ice in the freezer. So if there’s not an ice tray, we’ll pick up an ice tray when we’re out. Actually now we carry around the collapsible rubber ice cube trays and we’re set wherever we go!
If you’re frugal like we are, you probably first think that it’s not worth doing something like that because you’re just going to leave those ceramic bowls. But the fact of the matter is, if you’re renting for more than a week or two getting a $5 bowl and having that to eat your morning fruit and yogurt out of, as opposed to on plastic every day, is worth it.
To stock up the kitchen, I go through all the cupboards and drawers and I see what kind of staples they’ve left; salt, sugar, coffee filters those types of things. I use Pinterest for meal inspiration at that point. So I’ll have two to four simple meal ideas ready and we’ll go shopping from there. And of course, we have to be flexible when shopping for food in other countries, but we love eating local food and especially letting the local fruits and vegetables take the lead.
Here’s an example of one of my shopping lists. You’ll see that I leave it quite loose and I can just fill in with what is available and looks freshest at the local market.
Routine 3: Sleep Habits
There was a time, not very far back, when we would stay up until we were too tired to stay up any longer, and just wake up whenever we woke up. That sounds healthy enough on the surface but if you aren’t consistently getting 7-9 hours of sleep, it’s not working for you.
After a while these unstructured sleep habits, particularly because we’re not getting any younger, began to take their toll. Add to that the occasional jet lag and sometimes early or late flights, and it began to take a noticeable toll on us. If you want to remain healthy and have a happy productive longevity sleep is the KEY ingredient.
I know, we’ve all heard about the importance of sleep habits, but it wasn’t until I got sick with the flu in Oaxaca and then stayed sick for an entire month, and I normally never get sick, that I realized my immune system had become really run down from lack of sleep, and we had to get control over the situation.
So, here’s the game changing routine we use now around sleep. And I don’t say “game changing” lightly. It has truly changed everything for us.
We go to bed every night, lights out at 11:00 p.m. And in order to make sure that that happens, we start getting ready for bed within the 10:00pm hour or earlier. And we get into bed so that we have a little wind down time before 11pm, because we both like to do that. Wake up is at 7:00 a.m., or later if we need to keep sleeping.
I wouldn’t have believed it before, but this routine really works! No other single habit around sleep has helped as transformatively as setting bedtime and wake times. That includes trying melatonin, no coffee, etc.
And of course, every now and then, I’ll still have a hard time falling asleep or I’ll wake up too early, but I don’t allow myself to just get on my phone right away or start my day early if I happen to wake up at 4:00 a.m., which used to do. Now, that time from 11pm to 7am is for resting or hopefully for sleeping, but at least for resting. And even if I fall short one night, say I can’t go to sleep very easily, I don’t worry about it. I’m still getting close to 6 and a half to 7 hours of sleep on those nights and that is way better than I was doing before.
Because we stick to this 11:00 p.m. to 7 a.m. sleep schedule, we almost always get a full seven or eight hours of sleep each night. Neither one of us have been sick in months now. I feel the difference in every way.
11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. may not be your magic number. Maybe you’re a 1:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. or something like that. Also, we are semi-retired and Derek works as a consultant so depending on where we are in the world he has to adjust accordingly.
What really matters here is just that you take control of your sleep. You have to parent yourself a little bit. You deserve it.
Routine 4: Scheduling Downtime
This routine, scheduling downtime, we’re referring to specifically in relationship to travel because in regular life, this little thing called weekends, tends to remind us of the need to take downtime. However, we know it’s very easy, in regular life or in travel, to schedule yourself to the max.
Again since we’re semi-retired and still working, as well as traveling in a lot of stimulating and exciting places, this can be a recipe for go-go with no downtime. So, one of the things we try to do is schedule in a certain amount of downtime each week. We take it week by week. We evaluate what we need to do with what we want to do and we try to build in some white space.
One place we’ve started to do this is in the mornings. We like to take it slow, sip our coffee, hang out in bed and chat for a while, sometimes read for an hour or so.
We also try to do this in the evenings at least two or three evenings a week. Maybe one night we’ll put on some jazz music and enjoy a glass of wine together and just hang out in our apartment, or we’ll get into bed early and watch a movie and have snacks. We just want to make sure that we have time to chill.
We also try to schedule the occasional full day where we can do whatever we feel like doing in the moment. There are always sites to see, but at the same time, sometimes you just want to go for a walk or you want to finally check out that restaurant that you’ve walked by a dozen times, or sometimes we just want to spend the whole day at the beach. And that’s exactly why we like long-term travel.
Routine 5: Packing Day
Our fifth routine, packing day, has become more of a rule than a routine. It’s defined as any day that is the day before any significant travel.
Now, we each have a few things that we often end up doing on packing day, like moving video footage, talking to some of our family, or getting a few of those consulting tasks done that still need to get done before the trip. But the main rule of thumb is that we don’t do anything outside of the house that day.
What this means in reality is that we’ve done our grocery shopping already before that day, and if we haven’t seen a particular site, we’re not going to see it. We also do not go out to eat on packing day.
This routine has made traveling much less stressful. We never find ourselves in a hurry to pack anymore. We have plenty of time to pull out our little handy scale and weigh our luggage to make sure it’s not overweight, and then of course to move the heavy stuff over to the backpack that’s going on board with you. Overweight bags can add a lot of cost onto your travel and this used to be something we panicked over at the airport while trying to catch a flight.
There’s also inevitably some loose ends before travel. So once you have this wide open day, it allows you to handle anything that comes your way without stress.
So, that’s our short but mighty list. Are there any other routines that you do associated with travel that have made a big difference in your life? Please share!
If you are interested in watching the video associated with this topic you can find it here on our Good Life Road YouTube channel.
