How Travelling to Africa Taught Me to Slow Down
One of the great perks of working at TourRadar is our travel incentives. Naturally, my adventurous and curious side called out to me when I was made aware of this perk. I was reminded of my infatuation with elephants at a young age. My grade 3 animal research project stuffed away in my childhood bedroom can attest to this.
Africa. That’s where I wanted to go.
About a month before travelling, the safety concerns, the stress of pre-trip planning, and the neglect of daily responsibilities for two weeks littered my mind. What happens if my passport is stolen? Did I get all the correct vaccinations? What if I miss an opportunity at work while I’m away? Luckily, my coworkers were nothing but supportive to calm these nerves. Living in a big city like Toronto will train you to think fast and act faster. If you don’t, you’ll be left behind with no one to blame but yourself. That’s the mentality.
But I was going to Africa (Kenya & Tanzania, to be specific). Nothing could stop me — not even my mother’s natural worry of her youngest daughter travelling alone. It was final.
Before I knew it I was halfway across the world. And to my surprise, I left my worries at home. It was an excuse to focus on myself without distractions. There are many outside-work factors that could have contributed to high-stress and intense anxiety upon returning home, but instead, there was a new calm about my outlook on work-life balance.
Before I delve into my newfound calm, it should be noted that it has been about four years since I have travelled globally (other than to the States, but that doesn’t count as a Canadian). I also enjoy camping and the outdoors, so the African overland safari I chose was a travel style that was comforting enough for me to feel in my element, but also different enough for it to be a new challenge.
Without further ado, here are the points I focused on while on tour in East Africa that ending up teaching me how to slow down my daily routine.
Set Realistic Expectations
When you go on an African overland tour (or overlanding, or to Africa), you are not on your own time, you are on Africa-time. You are a guest in a stranger’s home. You do not control the outcome and there are certain things out of your control, which is why you learn to plan and set goals, but have realistic expectations that anything could happen.
For example, one drive day was meant to take us 6–7 hours from “wheels up” to arrival but ended up taking closer to 8–9 because of an issue with the truck. This isn’t ideal, but realistically, why would I worry when it was out of my control? It is also for this reason that the guides don’t tell the travellers the time they will be at the destination, but rather how many kilometres are left to travel. This manages expectations for all involved parties.
As a customer service specialist (Travel Expert), we aim for this kind of communication with our travellers as well. Say you want to book a last-minute tour that departs in two weeks — It is possible, but (depending on the operator) it’s sometimes not easy, and takes a lot of planning from many stakeholders. You must be comfortable with waiting a few days for the operator to check with its local teams in each destination, for availability of each excursion, activity, and accommodation — all for your one seat. It is for this reason that we do our best to ensure customers understand why it could take a few days to confirm. Our goal is to send as many travellers as possible on life-enriching experiences, but we have to be realistic with our customers.
Patience is key. You learn very quickly that you must go with the flow. You learn not to fret if something doesn’t go as planned.
Slowing down by setting realistic expectation allowed me to adapt and become malleable to situations out of my control.
Focus on One Thing at a Time
I’ll be honest; I’m not a morning person. In fact, I consider myself a night owl. But wild animals wait for nobody and they love the cool and calm at sunrise. On game drive days we would wake up as early as 4 a.m., so I learned to break down my morning into one thing at a time. It’s less daunting and you feel better about yourself when you have one task on your mind.
It’s something I would often forget in my day-to-day. At work and in my personal life, it’s easy to get caught up in wanting my goals to happen immediately. As a big-picture thinker, I often daydream of my next opportunity before realizing the steps I have to take to get there. OKRs (Objective & Key Results) are a way we at TourRadar break down our goals and hold ourselves accountable. One of the most important parts of choosing OKRs that we are consistently reminded of each quarter is to be realistic, but challenge yourself. It’s a fine line. The same should go for your personal goals outside of work. Don’t put unnecessary pressure on yourself.
I find that if I break down my goals into repeatable daily tasks, I’m more likely to accomplish them. One thing at a time, again and again.. and again. This increases your actionable tasks per day, your ability to form good habits and the feeling as though you have been productive in many areas of your life and work responsibilities. As per my first lesson, however, just remember to have the patience for these goals to materialize in the long term.
Slowing down by focusing on one thing at a time allowed me to maximize my productivity to tackle my goals.
Listen More, Talk Less
I encountered many locals and met a lot of lifelong friends in my tour group. Ones that taught me about the destinations they’ve travelled, the experiences they’ve had, and even just what kind of plant was standing before me.
Intelligent people know how to listen. While you’re at it, repeat what the person says back to you so you actually retain this knowledge. The people on your tour are from all ages and all backgrounds. You can learn new information, but also gain perspectives on topics you never knew would interest you. Best of all — you learn that you’re more similar than you originally thought.
This lesson is extremely relevant as a salesperson or customer support specialist. Sometimes our users will uncover issues we have not seen, or offer feedback we have not yet thought about. What does this do? It allows us to empathize with customers on the experience they’re having and respect new perspectives while bringing our team together to initiate customer-influenced change.
Slowing down by listening to others allowed me to gain new insight, increase empathy, and have more respect for diversity and differences.
Be Mindful and Stay in the Moment
Let your mind be free and enjoy the time you have set aside for this experience. Let’s face it — 3 weeks of vacation time is great, but we could always have more. As mentioned, there were many responsibilities and issues that could have consumed my mind that were entirely unrelated to my tour. I had to make an active effort to be mindful to acknowledge that those responsibilities exist, but to let them wash over me for my memory’s sake. There was nothing I could do in that moment and no immediate action could be taken. I was still. I allowed the dust in my mind to settle.
The elephants were a main highlight for me. We saw more than I could count in both Amboseli National Park and Tarangire National Park. They were just as majestic as National Geographic had always described them to me, only this time the elephant eyelashes batted down to me as they passed a few metres in front of our Jeep. I held my breath in amazement.
“Oh, it’s just another elephant” was exclaimed in my vicinity — the same vicinity as those elephant eyelashes I was just (and still am) gushing about.
That’s when I was most aware of my privilege.
“It’s not just another elephant. Some people don’t dream of moments like this because basic human needs are the focus.”
Silent reflection took the place of any rebuttal.
At TourRadar, I’m grateful for being able to travel to such destinations as an encouraged incentive. I’m grateful for my failures and my missteps in order to fail fast and pivot from them. I feel this sentiment with the company as a whole, too. We are honest and open with each other. We each have each other’s backs. And we aren’t afraid to embrace growth and what we need to change. Being mindful is much more than a state of mind at work. It’s how we understand where we are and where we need to go next.
Moments of success, such as a great review or praise to a team member, is shared in our “Good News” Slack channel and are never without copious emoji reactions. Work that needs improvement is also shared appropriately. If our minds lived anywhere but in the moment, we wouldn’t be able to have those honest (great or... less great) moments with one another in the workplace and become better versions of ourselves and a team. That’s something to be grateful for.
Slowing down by being mindful allowed me to recognize my privilege, have gratitude for my accomplishments, and own up to failure.
‘Remember Who You Are’
Last, but not least. (I had to throw in one Lion King reference.) This one is about staying true to your values and taking time for yourself. You don’t need to be surrounded by people the entire time. In fact, for the sanity of the rest of the tour group, it’s advisable not to be around each other 24/7. Write in your journal. Nap. Take a walk. Read a book. Have a shower. See if the WiFi works from another corner of the accommodation bar. Drink a Kilimanjaro beer if you can’t climb the mountain. Do anything else instead of talking to another person to bring yourself back to life.
Be honest with yourself — allow yourself to listen and understand what both your body and mind needs when it needs it.
I had fallen ill halfway through the tour. Pretty much everyone had gone through this or was about to go through it. “Is it up or down?” they’d asked as I was being handed multi-functional remedies. It’s almost a rite of passage when travelling to Africa to get sick at least a day or two. At least that’s what the group has told me. It’s not glamorous. I tried to tough it out the first morning but that was our longest scheduled drive day (of the 14 days). I had to be honest. I shared (hindsight: too many details) about my illness with people I had only known for a week. I went to bed at 7:00 p.m. that night when I knew I might be missing amazing late-night conversations, but it needed to be done. For me.
It wasn’t much different from work. My workplace is filled with managers who believe that a sick day is synonyms with “mental health day.” They encourage taking these, in fact. I have taken 3 since starting at TourRadar. Used, not abused. And used when absolutely needed. This, undoubtedly, increased my respect towards my managers and has given me a safe space to act and be every part of me that I am. It sounds sensational, but it’s true. Life throws everyone curve balls now and again. Sometimes those curve balls are not meant to be shown or shared with coworkers. We take care of each other as much as we can. We don’t allow one another to suffer or suffocate, so we act towards coworkers exactly how we would want to be treated. And those customer-facing short surveys we ask you to fill out? We implement the same thing internally. Happy team. Happy TourRadar. Happy touring.
Slowing down by remembering my values and feeling my emotions allowed me to understand my wants and needs in real-time and take instant action upon them.
These lessons can be applied to many areas if you’re feeling like there is too much on-the-go at once. I’ve found comfort in knowing I’m in charge of my own mind. For a hyperactive thinker, these will continue to help me through my day-to-day routine. And if not, I can always google elephant babies rolling in mud.
