The Power of Purpose: How a Trip Goal Can Give Meaning to Your Travel Adventures

We have wandered many times without a trip goal, and still, it is quite a lot of fun. But adding a goal for your trip can really enhance your travel experience in many ways. It is a true motivator, providing you with a sense of purpose and a compass. The trip goal helps you better organize your time and resources.

​How, having a trip goal makes the journey better?

The trip goal can determine the destination. If you would like to swim in the Death Sea, then you have only 2 countries to choose from. Do you want to see the North Light? Then you need to visit a North country like Finland, Sweden, Norway, Canada, or Russia.

The world is full of countries, and often it is hard to choose which should be next. The goal narrows down your choices making it a lot easier to choose.

​Then the destination will determine the attractions and activities on the way

Our current adventure has the goal to meet a dear friend in Budapest, Hungary. We started from Bulgaria, and we needed to create a route to Budapest. That made us travel across North Bulgaria, then Romania, and finally Hungary to reach its capital. That allowed us to climb different mountains, and see many waterfalls, caves, and little towns in the 3 countries on the way. If we didn’t have this final destination, we would probably go to different attractions.

​It gives you something to achieve

A journey with a final goal gives you something to work towards. The further and harder it is to get it, the more satisfied you will be, when you finally achieve it.

This time, our trip included more than 1000 kilometers, that we drove. Although I have had my driving license since I was 18, I don’t like driving long distances. It was a big challenge for me.

And also, sleeping in hotels, for the first time, since the COVID pandemic started.

It might be something small for some of you, but huge for us, to meet friends for the first time since the pandemic. We lived isolated for 2 years, without almost any live contact and it definitively affected us.

In the end, after you finally reached the goal, the feeling of accomplishment is amazing! You feel like you are on top of the world and you can do everything. You can return home charged and ready to start new adventures.

​The trip goal keeps you focused

At the beginning of the trip, we were so happy to be out that we wanted to see and go everywhere. Even though there is a pandemic outside, the world is beautiful, and with the right care, you can still explore it relatively safely. We decided to extend our stay in multiple places. Dryanovo, Lovech, and Belogradchik are great examples of that. We stayed there for a lot longer than we originally thought. But having in mind the limited time (2 months of a holiday) and the desire to meet our friend, we were continuing our journey towards the north. If we were without a goal, we could easily spend the whole holiday in Stara Planina mountain and be happy there. But, didn’t stray for too long and we eventually arrived in Budapest.

​A travel goal can help you budget the trip

If you know what you want from your travel experience then you can easily budget for the whole trip. If your end goal is to enjoy a hot air balloon in Belogradchik, Bulgaria, then you will need tickets to get there, around 200 euros for the attraction and 200-300 euros more for accommodation, food, and other entertainment for a few days. It makes it far easier to know when you can afford your trip and makes you far more secure during your trip. You can check in advance most of the expenses, and be prepared.

​A goal can give your trip a sense of purpose and meaning

Sometimes you have the money, you have the time but you don’t know what to do. It could be a trip to find yourself. To explore a different aspect of your personality, passions, interests, or even sexuality. You can set a goal, far more spiritual than just reaching a certain destination. You can have the trip of your lifetime.

​Which was the goal of our last trip?

The goal of our latest trip was to meet a good friend again and beat our COVID fears.

When we met, G and I were extremely outgoing, having plenty of friends and always ready to go out and meet new people. During our initial trips together, we made at least 100 friends from all around Europe.

But with time and all the work, we have slowly become distant from social life. We love each other company and that led to far fewer new friends. The absolute bottom point was the pandemic. It came and made us stay at home, and evade any social contact in person.

That was surprisingly easy. We were antisocial already. But with time, we started to miss some of our old friends. There are people in our lives that we associate with many happy memories. With other times. With careless life and lots of fun.

Such a person is our friend from Hungary. We won’t share his name, to protect our and his personal life. We met that guy a long time ago when we casually pass through his city hitchhiking. He got such a good vibe that we stay in touch and create a very nice friendship. Later he even visited us in Mexico. It's been almost a decade of friendship!

And visiting him, was a great way to break out of our COVID chains and see, why even if we don't need to see people, it is really nice.

2020 was spent without any trips. 2021 was the same. We were, and up to a point, we are still afraid of the Corona virus. Staying safe for so long, showed us that no contact means being healthy. And thanks to the fact that we are both freelancers, the work was not a problem. Also, not going out that much, helps you save a lot.

What was pushing us to go out were two things. The old friends that we were missing, and the deep desire to travel the world. Both were on hold for too long.

Finally, in the spring of 2022, we got brave enough and started our new long journey. From Varna, Bulgaria all the way up to Budapest, Hungary by car! Crossing 3 countries, and visiting more than 20 destinations on the way.

​Have we had other trips with goals in the past?

There are 4 big trips, that we shared, which were very goal-orientated. Very different, one from another.

Our trip to Israel, in which G surprised me and took me outside of Europe for the first time. The crazy thing was that I didn't know the destination until we got to the airport. And even during the first few seconds, after an employee gave me the tickets and told me "Have a safe flight to Tel Aviv", I remained clueless.

Hitchhike from Bulgaria to Finland to see the North Light. The summer when I finished the university, I and G wanted to go out and travel. But to make it more fun, we decided it should be a hitchhiking and CouchSurfing trip. After such a hard journey, seeing the North Light really made us cry.

From Mexico City to Vallarta by car, to have a Christmas on the beach. It was the vacation season, but because of our schedules, we couldn't plan in advance. We needed to improvise, but we knew we wanted to celebrate Christmas on the beach. So we search for a beach, that we haven't been to before together and we drove all the way there.

Cross Mexico from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean to see which one is better. Cancun and the Caribbean are stunning, but the Sargassum and its smell were getting annoying. So we check every beach on the Riviera Maya to see the best places, and then we cross the country to compare them to the beaches in Oaxaca. On the way, we made new friends, saved some turtles, and cleaned a massive river.

Someday, we will share more about them. And the multiple small trips, we have done on our own. There is a lot to write about, and so little free time.

​Conclusion

Yes, having a goal for your trip really makes it richer. The sense of purpose drives you and the final emotion of reaching the main objective truly stays with you forever.

However, it's important to keep in mind that a trip does not have to have a specific goal to be enjoyable and meaningful. Ultimately, the most important thing is to have fun and make the most of your travel opportunities, regardless of whether or not you have a specific goal in mind.

Enjoy the journey itself, the company of the people you are traveling with, yourself, all the nice emotions, and new experiences. Have fun!

Check the start of our last long trip: "The best waterfalls near Veliko Tarnovo (Bulgaria) you must visit!".