A car is, to me, an incredibly luxurious mode of transport. We can go whenever we like! It’s a private pod that can be made comfortable and it’s something that needs to be considered seriously, bearing in mind the impact journeys have on climate change.

A road trip can be fabulous, and difficult too. Travelling is tiring, something that seems to be forgotten nowadays. As though if one is sitting down then one is at ease. Not so!

As a child, my family always treated travelling or spending time in the cities as an exertion. One had to rest after travelling home from London by train.

Linus, my husband, was utterly bemused by this as he came from London to Wales to visit when we were first courting (salutes to Pre-Skype long distance relationships). He would arrive in Wales after a coach or train journey and my grandmother would immediately provide him with a huge meal and usher him to an armchair for a snooze. He whispered to me once, “She knows it’s not that far away right? I had breakfast in London, I’ll have lunch here soon, it’s not like I’ve trekked for days without food.” Well, it’s not that, but travel is still a big undertaking.

We went to London on Thursday for the Blogcademy Mixer Party. We left our house in Wales at 2pm and arrived in Dalston at 6.30pm on the dot. That’s a long journey.

So how to manage a long journey when a) you have chronic pain, b) you want to turn up at the other end looking reasonably presentable and c) you’re actually in a position to talk semi-intelligently and not just gesture for painkillers and silence.

Reasonable Expectations

If you aren’t super woman at home, travelling probably won’t make you morph into a productivity whirlwind. Just because you are away from your usual routine it’s easy to imagine everything will be different, and by different I mean easier. But you’ve set up your Healing Blueprint this way for a reason (and if you don’t yet have a Healing Blueprint to guide your Trail Blazing journey I recommend you join us in The Phoenix Fire Academy and get one). So look at your plans and see if you can’t stick to your healing or self care routine as much as possible.

Maybe you’ll do a shorter yoga practice?

Perhaps you’ll meditate in the passenger seat?

Or you’ll do stretches in a car park.

Then you’ll pop into the loo to take a 3 minute breathing space, and to check in with your body.

Take Breaks

Travelling can be more stressful than we imagine, so if you can anticipate this it makes it easier. Plan in lots of break time. If you think your journey will take 3 hours, plan in 4½ hours so you’ve got some breathing room. If you arrive on time you can always rest when you get there. That’s what the fully charged iPhone/iPod and audio book you’ve packed are useful for.

Make sure you have time for stops on your journey. We stopped several times at service stations so I could stretch out, rest, and get some space in my lower back, shake out the pain in my cramped limbs.

Dress for the journey

If I’m travelling a long way, I almost always have travelling clothes and event clothes. Travelling clothes are often a variation of leggings or soft jeans, boots, a sleeveless t-shirt with a long sleeve top over it and some kind of blazer and scarf combination over that. Which means layers for all types of climates and personal climates.

I take my event clothes with me and dress on arrival, or nearby. Hair, makeup, jewellery, simple!

And the Blogcademy mixer? It was utterly fabulous! Gala is a darling and a business wisdom powerhouse – we had the best time.

What are your travel tips? Share in the comments. And if you want my ultimate travel packing list, stay tuned.