The second I booked my plane ticket to NYC over New Year’s Eve I immediately started planning what I wanted to do. I thought of the usual touristy attractions like the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, and all of the museums. I also started dreaming of what I wanted to do for New Year’s Eve. Of course, my mind quickly went to Times Square and I started building expectations in my mind of the magic that I would be breathing in as the clock struck midnight. But, having those expectations-excpecting magic, after all-would be impossible to uphold. This is not to say though that I didn’t have an AMAZING time! NYC on NYE was beautiful, spectacular and incredibly amazing…yet not at all what I expected but taught me a lot about travel and what I would like to not do in the 2016.
In the same way NYE was different than what I dreamed and hoped for, so was the rest of my trip. Before I had even arrived, I planned out everything- what pictures I wanted to take and where, what the attractions would look and feel like, and even how the sites and neighborhoods would compare to one another. I think this is a common thing people tend to do when travelling. They build up these crazy ideas of what their trip will be like, what they want it to be like and how they want to “show it off” to everyone (queue social media), yet one of the main points of travel is to experience somewhere new and different and have an experience, so my prior planning was defeating the purpose all together and potentially, setting myself up for a lot of disappointment.
Philosophical thinking over and back to the real world, I found that most of my plans did not go as expected. Some of the activities I thought would be amazing ended up being kind of a let down, and some things that I never even planned on doing were some of the coolest things I experienced all trip.
I came to accept that even if I didn’t get the classic, cliché Statue of Liberty picture with my boyfriend that I dreamed of, I would get a ton of other cool pictures that would remind me of a trip that was unique to me- not one that every one sees in TV shows and magazines.
This same thing goes for my New Year’s Eve. Getting to be in Times Square would’ve been incredible, however, it is not even close to the only thing to do that night. In addition to the surplus of activities, Times Square ends up being very difficult to even get close to. Locals claim it is incredibly overrated because it is so crowded. I was initially very disappointed, however, there are tons of bars, parties all over town, and Central Park has pretty amazing fireworks where you can lay and watch them over the skyline. The night was better than I ever imagined and so was the rest of my trip but only because I let go of my expectations and allowed my vacation to go whatever way it needed.