Retro Session - New England Trip 2019

I already wrote a huge article about my recent trip to New England. This article just gazes upon that experience and tries to enlist the lessons I learned which hopefully be useful to some of you who might be planning to go on a similar venture in the future.

Planning

First thing we benefitted during this trip was planning. We had a solid plan in the beginning in terms of list of places to visit and backup places in case we are left with the extra time. Planning may seem like too much work, but believe me - It's a great way to achieve expected goals and objectives. At least it gives some degree of motivation to achieve goals and acts as a source of relief when you realize you were able to accomplish most of them.

Don't skip lunches in the rush of visiting touristic places

I have this bad habit (I still do!) of skipping lunches to make the best of the trip by visiting as many place as possible. However, this is counterproductive and comes back to bite you in later stages. This trip was great and we didn't skip the single meal unless we were really stuffed with the heavy breakfast or lunch menu.(One of the pros of traveling with someone else instead of all by yourself) Skipping lunches can also lead to serious health issues including, but not limited to headache, nausea, acidity, and fatigue. Always listen to your body and skip the attraction in favor of the visit to a nearby restaurant.

Carry the backup jacket in national parks

Going to national parks and walking on trails may sound like a great idea, but you cannot expect the weather to be the same as your city of residence. Due to geography, remote location, strong winds, and mountainous terrain, the weather in parks could be colder than usual. Even if it's summer, you don't know if it's  going to rain or not at random time. Having a jacket helps big time, especially when all your friends are climbing up the mountain and you're sitting in the car just because you left your jacket at home and now it's too cold to walk outside in strong winds, rain, and cold air.

Best time to visit (at least) National Parks and Forests

It was sort of accidental discovery, but my friend decided to come to visit New England a week before a long weekend. (Reason being tickets were extremely cheap as everyone was running to buy expensive long-weekend tickets) That made sense! But it also lead to another important finding. There were almost no or very few people at all the attractions we visited during that week. It was a stark contrast with both of my previous visits which were planned during the long weekend. If I have to make a guess, most of the people plan their visits during long weekends to save their paid time-offs and thus weeks - just before and after the long weekend are unusually quiet and free from tourist groups.

Do not underestimate the importance of hiking-boots

It's kind of ironic thing for me to mention, but I never did any hiking with special hiking-boots before. Based on the experience of my other friends, they are strongly recommended. Part of the reason I do not consider them to be an integral part of trekking may be stemming from the fact that I never actually went on the difficult hiking trail. As I experienced on a couple of occasions on this trip, you should wear them no matter whether it's a beginner's or experienced person's trek. I almost fell in the water stream and right on my face on the granite stone just because my shoes were barely at the level of being capable of walking on the street and didn't have any serious notion of grip. Luckily, nothing happened to me, but it can result in serious injury if you lack the proper care and enough luck. So hiking-boots are must while going to forests and trails if you really care about your well-being and the future.

This is all I have to share in today's retro session. I will keep adding content as I go on more trips and get more lessons about travel and related things. Thanks for reading!