You may think this is an EF Ultimate Break Review. It is, but it’s also not. It’s about how I took a leap of faith to travel by myself, which is something I never imagined doing with my personality. As well as how I ended up prioritizing myself, which lead to one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life. Most importantly, this is not a sponsored post – it is based solely on my personal experience of traveling with EF.
To begin with, I never really liked traveling from the get-go. With time, I soon realized why. Traveling was a struggle. I could never fall asleep, in a car or plane. Whether it’s for a 3-hour flight or 20, I would be wide awake. I did a 22-hour flight once without layovers, pre-covid, and it was a nightmare.
Eventually, I discovered that I actually did love visiting new places and countries. It was getting to those new places that drained me since at the time I was juggling a full-time job and school. Traveling seemed like extra work instead of a vacation. It was exhausting and what was worst, my travel companions were the complete opposite. They could knock out the minute they sat down and were ready to go the minute we landed.
It was strange to say the least, when all of sudden in summer 2021 I was itching to travel…badly. I’d assume, it was like that for everyone in 2021. I wanted to go somewhere – anywhere but home. Unfortunately, it was the worst, yet best timing.
All of my travel friends were for it, however, they all had different priorities at the moment. One friend was getting married (which I planned but that’s a story for another time). The second friend traveling with their partner, who never wanted to travel, so she felt like she had won the lottery. My third friend was meeting her partner’s family for the first time.
In other words, they were down to travel with me but there were the unsaid words in the background – I would have to wait. I completely understood since being in a relationship, completely realigns one’s life.
So I waited and had an incredible summer in NYC. Fall came around and I sensed, none of them were ready to travel then as planned. The downfall of being the only single person in your friend group.
As a result, I decided to travel solo for the first time. It was something I had to contemplate for most of the summer because of my concerns. How safe was it to travel alone as a young petite woman? What if I regretted it? What would I do if I needed help? I would be completely alone. Safety was my main concern since even walking home late at night as a woman, is something to worry about. It’s unfortunate, but it’s our reality.
So I researched, telling no one of my plans. Since did I also mention, my friends are quite protective.
That’s how I discovered EF Ultimate Break. There are tons of other company’s just like EF Ultimate Break and traveling with EF, was what I ended up choosing.
One of the reasons why I chose to travel with EF was that they made travel groups by age. You would travel with others in their 20’s, like you, to make it easier for everyone to connect with age. There were people traveling solo, with friends, or with their partners. It addressed one of my concerns about traveling alone for safety reasons. A plus was being able to connect with new people since it’s become difficult to meet new individuals after Covid hit.
The second reason is everything is planned for you. I am a planner, but with covid, the constant changing status of flights and country restrictions has made planning a trip insanely difficult. But all I had to do was just submit my payment after speaking to my trip consultant and simply waiting for flight details, as well as, the link to the Facebook group to connect with everyone before we meet.
In the end, I met some of the most amazing people in my life. In fact, I’m planning on traveling with some of them again later this year with EF.
I ended up choosing to travel to Greece in early September, which I later found out was one of the best times to go to Greece. The weather was perfect. It was off-season so things were cheaper and there were fewer tourists. My group ended up being quite small with around 20 people, all-woman except for two men. There was only one couple and the rest were a mixture of solo travelers like myself or some who had come with one other friend.
They planned everything from our flights to our activities, and the best part, we could choose to not do the activities planned for us and do our own thing if we wanted to. However, I liked what one of my friends on that trip said. She would rather do everything that was planned because she felt like she wouldn’t do any of those things otherwise alone. Which was so true, in my case. I would have just stayed in after the first day from exhaustion.
I ended up doing everything and most of it was for the first time. We went snorkeling, tubing, jet skiing, cave swimming, and much more. Trying new things was great. Yet my favorite part was that throughout the trip, I felt like I was redefining myself from scratch.
The people I usually travel with are quite protective of me. Maybe it’s because most of my closest friends are older than me and being younger, makes them want to protect me. That being said, in their defense, I am just as protective of them.
Nevertheless, I never realized how limiting it was. I was never a reckless person, to begin with, but I realized I overthought my actions more with them.
In the past, I would put my needs second, since I preferred peace with my relationships. I would essentially do whatever my travel companion wanted. As a result, I realized I never thought about what I wanted.
However, in Greece, I was uninhibited, free, and unjudged. I did what I wanted without questioning my wants. It’s crazy to admit, but I actually began to learn about what I wanted in the first place. I became a person I didn’t even know I could be. My companions in Greece, also traveling with EF, described me completely different from what I would describe myself before. Previously, I considered myself quite a scaredy-cat, who preferred to stay in the corner at parties. They thought I was confident, daring, and the center of all parties.
I ended up recognizing one thing – traveling pushed my limits. Traveling alone, pushed my limits further. It forced me to grow. Coming back from Greece, I had changed quite a bit and I wasn’t the only one that noticed. In the upcoming winter, I ended up traveling with those very friends, who were initially unable to in the summer, and even they pointed out how much I changed. I began to point out my wants and needs, with it making traveling more enjoyable.
Perhaps that’s why the universe decided to help me in their own way. Perhaps that’s why no one was available that summer. I was given a chance to change and evolve on my own…and I took it.
Photo by James Ting on Unsplash
