1) Let go of control
The world is going to do what it’s going to do, often regardless of how you feel about it or what you attempt to do about it. It will rain or snow when it wants, strikes will happen when it’s least convenient, buses will break down, restaurants will run out of your favorite dish, stores will close for hours in the middle of the day, and the government will even shut down when you most need it.

This isn’t an invitation to feel powerless and to respond by giving up. Instead, it’s an invitation to constructively deal with what is and to identify and focus your efforts in areas you can control: your approach to people, how you respond, your ability to problem solve, your situational creativity — all in an effort to actively craft the style of experience you want.
Going Outside Comfort Zone
Cycling in Bangladesh. Now that was out of control!

2) Let go of who you “should” be
Sometimes we adhere to notions of who we “ought” to be, often based on some internal chatter regarding what we imagine others think of us.

Sounds tangled, doesn’t it?

The beauty of being on the road: nobody knows who you “should” be. All they know is who you are then and there. Experiment: give an audience to those little voices inside encouraging you to do something new, something that might even surprise your friends at home. Let go of who you should be for who you’d like to be (within limits please, don’t be a jerk or be hurtful).
Mindful Travel, Pushing Boundaries
Dan embraces his inner clown near Oaxaca, Mexico.

Then, don’t abandon this newly developed dimension of yourself when you return home. Try to incorporate the behaviors into your daily life. If that requires making changes in your life that others can’t quite understand, then so be it.
3) Let go of time
Buses, trains and airplanes depart and arrive on their own schedule, not yours. Punctuality knows wildly different meanings and manifestations around the world. People move, act and react at varying speeds. Travel demonstrates that time is a construct and its importance is relative.

Mindful Travel, Letting Go of Time
Letting go of time…when a 5-hour journey takes twice as long in the High Caucasus Mountains, Georgia.

This may be among the most difficult release to embrace. After all, many of us have ingrained in us the idea that “time is money.” It’s our vacation, our holiday and there’s an itinerary, there’s stuff to do, there are places to go and see and be.
Herein lies the freedom, the freedom to accept that the schedule of the world around us is not always tied to our needs. Plan accordingly as best you can. Then leave some space.

You just may find that some of your best experiences happen there.

4) Let go of fear
Travel can serve up situations that are uncomfortable — sometimes physically, but more often emotionally. While traveling you usually have no choice but to work through the discomfort.

This process can be painful, but the rewards are almost always worth it.

Fears run from the primal fears of physical harm to the more mundane, yet no less damaging, fears of looking stupid by doing the “wrong” thing or asking the “wrong” question. For the first, let go of the fear and replace it with awareness. For the second, confront your fear of exposing your ignorance by asking the silly question anyway.

Then watch your fear slowly be replaced with wisdom.

Travel also teaches us that some of our greatest stories and greatest memories are accrued when we dip our toe into the pool of fear and realize that it really wasn’t that scary after all. Our fears, though seemingly very “real” are by definition mental. That is, they exist entirely in our heads. Tap into them, get amongst them and surmount them by succeeding in something that previously seemed frightening or impossible.