Lettie Goes Travelling

The biggest difference between relaxed travellers and stressed ones isn’t experience.

It’s mindset.

Stick with me.

It’s New Year’s Eve in a big hotel in Cyprus. I’m shown to my table feeling a million dollars in full glitzy finery, casually sipping my Prosecco… when I see it.

The woman being seated at the table next to me is wearing exactly the same dress.

She hasn’t clocked me yet.

This can go one of two ways:

awkward avoidance all night…

or humour.

So I lean over and say,

“Glad to see I’m not the only person with exquisite taste.”

Turns out her husband was born down the road from where I grew up. I ended up joining them for the evening and had a hoot.

Now you might read that and think I’m confident or bold.

Truth?

Inside I was dying a thousand deaths.

But I made a decision — I wasn’t going to let a moment of discomfort define my night. And I wasn’t going to let it ruin hers either.

That’s mindset.

Could I have planned for that situation?

Should I have checked what everyone else was wearing first?

Was it even something worth worrying about?

Exactly.

Travel is like that too.

My philosophy — in travel and life — is simple:

don’t sweat the imagined problems. Deal with what’s actually in front of you.

Because mindset is visible.

If you appear calm and grounded, people respond to you differently. Situations unfold differently. You feel different.

If you stand in a hotel lobby nervously checking your bag, your phone, your pockets — people notice that too. And not always the people you want noticing.

Barcelona is famous for pickpockets. When I visited, I wore my leather backpack on my back.

People kept warning me:

“You should wear it on your front.”

“You shouldn’t carry a backpack at all.”

But I knew something they didn’t.

Leather is hard to cut.

The outer pockets were empty and slightly open — a silent signal of nothing to take.

The only real zip was pressed against my back.

Could something have happened?

Of course.

But the chances were small. And fear wasn’t going to run my holiday.

So I walked through Barcelona exactly as I intended to feel:

Calm.

Aware.

Unbothered.

And that’s the real difference.

People who enjoy travel don’t avoid problems.

They just trust themselves to handle them if they appear.