If You Have Any Travel-Related Fears, This Is How You Can Get Over Them

It’s natural to become more risk-averse as we get older, but that doesn’t have to mean the end of exciting travel adventures.

“H

ow many helicopter rides?” my husband Steve asked me after I shared a rough draft of our African safari itinerary a few weeks ago.

Our Botswana adventure with Wilderness Destinations, a longstanding safari company with many remote lodges around the continent, ended up including two rides in a small, four-person chopper and one flight on a small, arguably more nerve-wracking Cessna plane. There was simply no other way to get from the airport in Maun, Botswana, to the distant landscapes of the camps we’d chosen. But it meant Steve would have to conquer his fear of flying in small planes and helicopters in a completely foreign land if he wanted this particular travel experience.

Dr. Gail Saltz, a professor of psychiatry at the New York Presbyterian Hospital Weill-Cornell School of Medicine and a psychoanalyst in private practice, says it’s only natural that as we get older and the realization about “what can go wrong,” dawns on us, we become fearful. With things like flying, a rather common fear, it doesn’t help that the internet is awash with stories of fateful crashes and accidents, Dr. Saltz points out.

Whether it’s fear of injury from trying a novel activity on vacation or anxiety around flying, it’s human nature to handle the fear and the worry by choosing to avoid the thing causing the concern, explains Dr. Saltz. The problem with this? The result, she says, is the more you avoid, the smaller your world shrinks. “If you do the things that make you nervous, over time it desensitizes you to that fear and you can become comfortable.”

Fortunately, there are ways to push past the discomfort, and Dr. Saltz has actionable tips for getting over any anxiety and pushing yourself to do the thing.

Identify the Anxiety

“All humans have anxiety,” Dr. Saltz says. The anxiety itself (though it’s worth noting that we aren’t talking about a diagnosed anxiety disorder that may require specific treatment) isn’t the issue and can even be helpful.

It can be the reason you don’t sign up for the advanced hike when you’re more of a beginner. It can be the reason you don’t rent a car in a large, unfamiliar city when you don’t like driving at home, and instead choose to rely on public transportation or a hired driver. And it can be the reason you train for the marathon before hopping on a plane to Berlin to run the long-distance, world-class race.

The first step in conquering a travel fear–be it a newfound or a lingering one–is to identify what it is about it that’s making you feel nervous.

A few months ago I was sailing on the Celestia, a small yacht in Indonesia, when my travel partners decided it would be fun to jump off the ship’s bow into the water below. This used to be the kind of thing I’d have gleefully jumped at (no, literally!) doing. The expected exhilaration would have been enough of a draw. But suddenly faced with taking this giant leap after more than a decade of not partaking in such shenanigans made my heart race and my brow sweat. Why was I suddenly so scared? Was it a fear of getting hurt on the way down? Of drowning?

First you figure out the why behind the anxiety and then you see if there’s a way to work the problem.

Problem Solve (Inasmuch as Possible)

Dr. Saltz says working through anxious thoughts is largely about your mental approach. Once you have identified the cause of the worry, ask yourself: Is there a way to solve this problem?

Aboard Celestia and so badly wanting the taste of the sweet reward I knew the high jump would yield, I realized I needed to not approach the jump with any timidity. If I was scared that I might slip on my way off the ledge and if slipping meant hitting my head on the boat and not making it safely in the water, well then, I had to wait to go until I was ready. This caused me to ruin a group photo (or two), but once I psyched myself up to clear the jump, considering the momentum needed to do it, I still felt nervous, but I also felt emboldened.

Dr. Saltz gives the example of anxiety over feeling nauseous. For example, if you’re worried you’re going to lose your lunch because of a helicopter ride, a bumpy boat ride, or on a safari game drive off-roading, you can problem-solve this with a Dramamine, ginger chew, or other stomach-settling candy or chew. You might also bring a good old paper bag in the event that you do wind up getting sick.

It’s possible, however, that your fear isn’t related to one specific thing but to the travel experience as a whole. This was true for Jackie Pilossoph, a Chicago-based author, who says there was no one more fearful of international travel than she was. At 59 years old, it had been nearly 40 years since Pilossoph left the U.S. It wasn’t one thing she was afraid of with her planned trip to Greece, but rather everything: the plane crashing, terrorism, being kidnapped, getting sick. She credits faith with getting her through and also just “letting go of the uncontrollable” factors.

“I would tell people that if you can plan the trip and get on the plane, the rest is easy! It’s just doing it,” says Pilossoph, echoing Dr. Saltz’s sentiments about just doing the thing, no matter how small (jumping off a boat for a rush of exhilaration) or large (traveling alone in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language).

Activate the Reward Center

With flying, you’re probably just going to be happy your plane made it to your destination safely. That is, you’re not seeking awe and wonderment from the experience.

But with other activities, like a rigorous hiking trip or trying surfing for the first time even though big waves sort of scare you, there’s an opportunity to feel the reward, to revel in the accomplishment.

Allow yourself to feel the “awe,” says Dr. Saltz. Give yourself a moment of acknowledgment: “Wow, I did this,” Dr. Saltz says. This acquisition—“I did this!”—is a “resilience-building experience,” that can be useful the next time you encounter travel anxiety around trying something new or outside your comfort zone.

By the time we boarded the Cessna for our flight back to Maun at the end of the safari, my husband was not only ready, but, dare I say, looking forward to the experience. He even took a window seat so he could get a few final glimpses of the awesome wildlife below.