My luggage has been lost by the airline! It’s a traveller’s greatest fear!
You are standing by the luggage carousel, desperately searching for your luggage, watching intently as each piece goes by, the fear building moment by moment, until you finally spot your bag and breath a sigh of relief. Everyone goes through it! Please God, make sure my luggage was on the same plane as I was!!
Recently, I went on vacation and after a very early morning wake up call, over 12 hours of flight time, several hours on layover and two time zones later, we landed in Tahiti. For us, it was 2:30 am!! We were tired, hungry and anxious to start our vacation! We eagerly waited to grab our luggage so that we could get out of the airport, grab a bite to eat, probably an adult beverage or two and finally relax!
Pieces of luggage came down the conveyor belt, but not one belonged to us! You know that feeling as your stress level starts to rise and you keep praying that the next piece of luggage will be yours?? The next piece will be ours… nope, well the next piece will be ours… nope! That was me!
Eventually we discovered that not only was our luggage not on the plane, it had actually never left Toronto!!
We now belonged to that exclusive group of travellers who have had to deal with lost luggage!
Panic, disbelief, stress, anger – these were the emotions that I initially experienced.
How could our luggage have been left behind? What was I going to wear? My vacation was ruined before it even started!!
But as I worked through it, I realized that this was part of the adventure, I had enough to manage, and heck, there are worse places in the world to be without luggage! I started to focus on the things that I was grateful for, rather than the things that had gone wrong. That brought about an attitude shift, stress level down, emotional stress decreasing….
Now, my husband and I pack strategically – both pieces of luggage have items of clothing for each of us, in case one gets lost (which doesn’t help when they BOTH get lost, I get it!). But, we also include items in our carry on bags, like bathing suits, and some extra clothing to get us through a day or two.
For this particular trip, I had already been considering managing with just carry on bags, so I had actually packed items such as pj’s and dinner clothes, that I might not otherwise have packed. We had travel toothbrushes and I had my make up (thank goodness!!), spare underwear, shoes and extra shorts and tshirts. Not nearly enough to last a week, but not too bad!!
The catch was… we were on a cruise. So even when (or if) the luggage showed up, it somehow had to catch up to us. And since the luggage was still in Toronto, it was going to be at LEAST two days.
Here’s what I learned living from without luggage:
Laugh, or you will cry! It just got to be funny as we reached for items that, oh yeah, were in our checked bags! Grab the sunscreen – nope, it’s in our luggage (which we don’t have!); want to wear a specific dress for dinner, yeah it’s still in Toronto! It became a game and we laughed whenever we could. We also looked for the positives – like not lugging two large suitcases through the airport, or not having to unpack! Life got simpler really fast!
Overall, we have too much stuff! When I was contemplating packing only in a carry on, one of my fellow travellers said he couldn’t do it because he needed the variety. Well, what I discovered was that we have too much variety at times! For the first few days, I was managing on two dinner outfits, one bathing suit and two shorts/t-shirts combos quite nicely. Yes, we washed out our underwear nightly, but once our luggage did show up (after FIVE days), I realized that finally having more options just made decision making more difficult. There is something to be said for just making it simple – Steve Jobs wore black every day, because he didn’t want to waste time considering which outfit to wear.
Enjoy the experience! We were in one of the most beautiful parts of the world, a place we had never been and might never return to. Who cares what you are wearing??? And who cares if you are wearing the same thing as yesterday?? Soak in the views, the meals, the friendships! Don’t let lack of a specific outfit ruin the moment! My Facebook posts included beautiful shots of the area, AND a few jokes about having no luggage – we had fun with it!
Vacations are meant for relaxation, so relax! Do your due diligence and contact the air line and whomever else needs to be notified, but then LET IT GO! Shop if you have to for a few items. This will be a great story to tell, so make sure you are going to enjoy telling it (over and over). This means you need to let go of the anger and stress!
I CAN travel with a carry on only! If I had packed a little better, I probably would not have even needed to shop for the few things that I had missed. My next vacation will be without checked luggage and I can’t wait to experience the freedom that comes with that.
For me, it was all about focussing on gratitude – we were in Tahiti after all, on a cruise ship where I didn’t need to cook a meal or make a bed, with my husband, who I was so glad was at my side, and with wonderful friends (who had sunscreen to share!).
As a nutrition coach, you will often see me post about Food Freedom. Well, I’ve now discovered a new freedom – Travel Freedom and I can’t wait to do it again.
