Too Many Places: Overcoming the Paradox of Choice

 “Where should I go?” is a question I frequently ask myself. Wanting to escape the oppressive summer heat of Austin in August,  I’ve spent the last few months staring at a map, unable answer that very  question. I toyed with the idea of heading to Madagascar, Hawaii,  Malta, Kenya, the Caribbean, the Maldives, Dubai, or Sri Lanka. And, because I couldn’t choose and was so afraid to commit, it wasn’t  until this week I finally decided — just weeks before I wanted to go.  (More on that later.) Why? I was suffering from what psychologists call “choice overload.” Whether we have two weeks, two months, or two years, deciding where  to go is the hardest part about travel. Once you have the time, picking  the destination becomes a task of whittling down a long list of  “must-see” destinations. When people are faced with too many options, they are sometimes so paralyzed by the fear of making the wrong choice that they don’t make any choice. Think of standing in the cereal aisle. We have all these options  right in front of us, but we keep going back to our old favorite, Fruity  Pebbles. (Or, Cinnamon Toast Crunch if we’re feeling crazy!) We may want to try something new, but we can’t figure out what we  want the most — there are just too many options! How do we choose? How  do we know we won’t make the wrong choice? So, paralyzed with  indecision, we go back to what we know. And, if we don’t have a  favorite, often we just choose what is popular and familiar to our mind  (Cheerios). In psychology, this is called “analysis paralysis.” Contemplating our  options becomes such a taxing mental burden that we don’t make a  decision. Our minds want shortcuts. It’s how we process all the  information thrown at us each day. It’s too difficult to think about every  simple decision all the time. Going with what you know and is familiar  is how we shortcut our analysis paralysis. (This is all explained in the  2004 book The Paradox of Choice, which I highly recommend reading!) Think of the world as the proverbial cereal aisle. We’re looking  forward to picking a cereal (a destination), but suddenly realize we  have too many options. Faced with so many choices and without a strong  opinion (e.g., I really want to go to Thailand this fall!), we  stare blankly, wondering if picking a destination is the right choice,  so we end up (a) fretting about it for months like I did, missing flight  deals and precious planning time or (b) end up with what is big,  popular, and familiar (let’s visit Paris for the tenth time!). I often get so paralyzed by choice that I don’t book a trip until the  last minute, and even then, I often suffer from buyer’s remorse. Did I  really want to book that flight to Dubai? Or should I have gone to  Madagascar instead? If I do this trip, will I have time to visit Peru  later this year, or should I just go to Peru now? Last week, after months of fretting, I finally bit the bullet and  booked tickets to Dubai, the Maldives, and Sri Lanka. I’m beyond  thrilled (especially for Sri Lanka) but in the back of my mind I still  find myself thinking, “Is 15 days really enough to enjoy Sri Lanka?  Maybe I should go somewhere else until I can spend more time there!” Of course, when I get to the destination — any destination — all of  that second-guessing melts away and I have the time of my life. If you’re a long-term traveler, you can go anywhere for as long as  you want. But when you only have a limited amount of time — because  you’re like me and slowing down, or because you just have a few weeks  off from work and need to make the most of them — you have to be more  selective. So how do you narrow down your destinations, get on with your trip  planning, and not suffer the anxiety that comes with choice overload? This experience has given me a new philosophy on trip planning. I’ve changed how I decide on destinations: First, embrace the variety. You’re always going to be  overwhelmed by choice. There will always be more destinations to visit  than you have time to see. The list of places to visit will only get  longer the more you travel, not shorter. Don’t fight it. Recognize it,  but don’t let it control you. Second, start with list of ten places you want to go right now.  Come up with the destinations that are at the top of your mind. This  year, now that I am taking fewer trips, I want my trips to be to places  I’ve never been and are as culturally different as possible, so I came  up with the list at the top of this blog (yes, I know not all of the  places are culturally different from each other!). Third, figure out when you can go and how long you have. For  me, since I was only going in August, I knew I had exactly a month  (since I have to be stateside for weddings in September and October). Fourth, think of the time of year. Which country has the  weather you want to enjoy the most? I’m trying to escape the heat of  inland Austin, so I wanted beaches. I crossed Hawaii and the Caribbean  off the list, but I still wanted something beachy and adventurous. The  Maldives and Sri Lanka may be hot, but they have beaches! Fifth, make the length of your travels proportional to the size of the country.  I didn’t want to attempt to visit large countries like India, Brazil,  or China when I have just a few weeks. I wanted to see smaller  destinations that I could explore more in depth during a shorter period  of time. By this point I knew I was down to using Dubai as a hub and  finding destinations from there. Finally, look up flights. From Dubai, it was $1,700 USD to  Madagascar but $400 to the Maldives, and $0 to get to and from Sri  Lanka, thanks to airline miles. I didn’t have enough points to fly on  the African carriers I wanted (I burned 100K United points last month on  other flights — whoops!) so Madagascar and Kenya were out of the  question. That left the Maldives and Sri Lanka as the best places to  visit from Dubai. And, with that, where I’m going was settled. Once I stopped letting too much choice keep me from making a decision  and after logically going through my checklist, I stopped hemming and  hawing about where I wanted to go, found my destinations, booked my  trip, and got on with getting excited about visiting new places. Overcoming choice overload in travel is about first realizing that  there will always be more places to visit than you have time, then  figuring out what destinations fit what you can do right now. Once you  start with your list of destinations, getting down to the perfect one  becomes a process of elimination. I know many of you suffer from the same problem I do (your emails to  me are proof), and I hope you use this advice to overcome choice  overload. Because there will always be too many destinations to choose from and too little time to see them in.