How To Calm Travel Day Anxiety
Before you launch off to your next adventure, use these tools to slay travel mishaps and maintain your sanity
Travel Itinerary July 15, 2024
Limited WI-FI, no Google maps, no apps
Countries: Switzerland, Germany, France, Belgium
Languages: German, French
WHAT WAS “SUPPOSED” TO HAPPEN
6:00 a.m. Pet sitting cats are fed, apartment clean, ready for owner's return.
6:40 walk to tram station with carry-on suitcase and backpack. Pray it doesn’t rain.
7:00 - 7:35 tram #10 from Hoftetten Flüh, Switzerland, to Basel, Switzerland, train station.
Purchase food and extra water at train station.
8:13 - 10:24 ICE train #372 Basel to Mannheim, Germany
10:36 - 12:04 ICE train #612 Mannheim to Cologne, Germany
12:42 - 1:46 Eurostar #9450, carriage 27, seat 71, from Cologne to Liège, Belgium
Meet blonde French girl wearing a black jumpsuit and backpack on Platform 3a to receive house keys for my Belgium pet sit. Her train leaves at 2:00, so there’s less than 15 minutes.
Figure out public transportation from Liège train station to pet sit apartment.
WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED
On July 15th, I traveled from a pet sit in Switzerland to a pet sit in Belgium. The trip involved four trains, seven hours of travel, four countries, two foreign languages, and one solo wide-eyed and anxious American female.
Everything was going swimmingly until an announcement that the train I was on, #372, would arrive late at our final destination in Mannheim. This meant I would miss my next 2 train connections and need to figure out how to get the keys for the Belgium pet sit. I found a semi-English-speaking German man to translate the announcement. Basically, it was “Thank you for traveling with can’t-keep-a-schedule train lines; you’re SOL!” With thumbs down, he shared they would not hold the connecting train #612.