Now, you’re probably thinking to yourself that if you are going to be packing your bags to Portugal, all you need to do is to pack clothing, enough money, as well as making sure your accommodations are all in order and you are fully prepared. Well, you would be absolutely correct, but at the same time, you would be far off the mark.

You see, a lot of people, when they travel, tend to focus preparation as primarily a practical concern. In other words, it’s all about booking the right places, it’s all about making sure that they get the right airplane tickets at the right prices, it’s all about researching places to eat. These are all well and good, but you need to look past that.

You see, when you’re on a vacation trip, you’re there not to just do a quick in and out of the country. If you’re on a business trip, that’s all you do. You fly in, you take care of business, and then you get out on the next flight. It’s a quick in and out situation. Not so with a vacation trip.

The whole point of a vacation is to step away from the old you, to step away from the old identity you have set for yourself at your job, at your community, in your family, and so and so forth.

You see, in any given day, we wear many different masks. We are many different people. These different masks involve different responsibilities, duties and obligations. Our social context often defines for us who we are. At the very least, they define who we should be.

As you can well imagine, there’s not a lot of control here. And while you can control public perception up to a certain degree, ultimately, a large chunk of it is beyond your grasp. And this can easily lead to stressful situations.

It’s not uncommon for a lot of people to feel that they’re under a lot of stress and pressure because they are essentially living in a world that they did not create. This is why a lot of people travel. When you travel, you leave that old self behind. You get to see the world with a fresh set of eyes. This is why you should prepare for this mindset.

If you just prepare for your trip as simply packing the right stuff and making sure the practical considerations are taken care of, you’re leaving a lot on the table, and ultimately, you’re not going to get the most out of your trip. It’s supposed to be a trip of restoration. It’s supposed to change the way you look at things. It’s supposed to pay off internally, both mentally, emotionally and possibly spiritually.

As you can well imagine, you really can’t assume that somehow, some way, you will stumble into all these realizations. It doesn’t work that way. You have to be more proactive. You have to take the first initiative. You have to take matters into your own hands.

So to properly prepare for your vacation trip to Portugal, you need to meditate, you need to read all sorts of books on the liberating effects of traveling, and you have to mellow out. Once your mind is relaxed, chilled and open, you’d be surprised as to how the rest of life opens up in your very eyes and you only come out of it richer and more enlightened than you went in.