Five Stages of Travel: A Tounge-in-Cheek philosophical tale

How Travel Goes From ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’ to ‘This Is Who I Am Now’ in Exactly Five Semi-Planned Stages

Dream, plan, book, experience, share: five stages that sound obvious but unfold like existential origami. Each one nudges us closer to a life with more intention, more curiosity, and, sometimes, more wine. This is not theory. This is observable fact, like gravity or how luggage wheels only work properly when no one is watching.

On Fina Road, travel is not romanticised. It is treated with care. Because in its bumbling, brilliant way, travel still offers what most of modern life does not: a chance to re-author the story. One slightly questionable [boat/accommodation/road/…] choice at a time.

Stage One: Dreaming (Also Known as Mild Delirium)

It begins with a photograph. Or a conversation. Or, in one notable case, a mildly expired cheese and an unusually clear, wine free, Tuesday. The point is, it begins.

You are going about your sensible life: balancing things like gas bills and knee pain, when your brain, unprompted, suggests, “You could be somewhere else.” Somewhere involving mountains. Or hammocks. Or a small village that takes pride in its goats. This is an evolutionary mechanism, like blinking or filing your taxes on time.

The financially independent traveller feels this keenly. They have spent enough time thinking about life design. When the cheese moment hits, they do not reach for a brochure. They go for a google, reach for a spreadsheet, sit and dream, have a whiskey, and keep it to themselves, for now . . . ‘cos it’s a wee bit crazy.

Stage Two: Planning (Or the Cheese Moment Moves Along)

Dreaming is imaginative. Planning is what happens when that imagination meets exchange rates and visa requirements. This is the stage where abstract desire becomes tactical intent. The metaphysical becomes clickable.

Those travelling along the Fina Road often possess an uncanny ability to find accommodation in countries most people haven’t yet realised exist. They travel to reorganise life. This can be difficult to explain to an aunt who still thinks “digital nomad” means unemployed with a Wi-Fi addiction.

Planning reveals strange truths. For example: you can live in a seaside village in southern Spain for less than the price of parking in central London. Entire economies exist that are powered solely by house-sitting and trust.

Stage Three: Booking (The Ritual of Click and Panic)

This is the moment the dream, having worn trousers made of whimsy until now, puts on proper boots. You hit the button. You book the ticket. You stare at your inbox as if the confirmation email is going to bite.

Booking is about self-declaration. It is the act of deciding your life would be improved by a train journey through a place where goats outnumber people.

People describe this stage as exciting. It often feels more like standing at the edge of a high dive with a very small towel. But in the Fina Road context, this is where personal momentum builds. Permission is no longer required.

Stage Four: Experiencing (Where It All Goes Marvellously Wrong)

Now you are there. Wherever there is. A beach, a mountain, a flat above a bakery that smells of garlic and hope. You are in the midst of the reality, which includes unexpected rain, a washing machine that speaks only Italian, and the realisation that maps lie.

This is good. It is where the pointy bits of travel smooth into something meaningful. Plans change. Conversations with strangers become more profound than six months of corporate Teams meetings. A missed bus becomes an introduction to a town that doesn’t technically exist but serves excellent cheese.

Fina Road travellers often find that purpose arrives in small acts: washing up in someone else’s sink, learning the polite word for “toilet”, and realising that time, used well, functions as its own kind of currency.

Stage Five: Sharing (Or How to Avoid Becoming That Person at Dinner Parties)

Eventually, you return. Physically, at least. You come back with stories and sand in odd places. The sharing begins. Not just photos or blogs. Not just your list of places with intermittent Wi-Fi. Real sharing. Reflections. Observations. The sorts of truths that sneak up on you like a cat you forgot you owned.

For the Fina Road traveller, sharing maps the path for others. It is a way of saying, “I did this. The world did not end. You might do it too, if the cheese ever speaks to you.”

The Cycle of Slightly Bewildered Purpose

This is where the journey reboots. Once you’ve told the story, you are ready to dream again. And this time, perhaps, with fewer socks. And while the map might look roughly the same, you won’t. You’ll have moved a few inches sideways in your thinking, left your socks in another time zone, and come home with a compass that now points firmly to somewhere slightly unexpected, but entirely yours.

Thank you, cheese moment.