How to Reset Your Pet-Friendly Travel Goals With a Travel Vision Board
Pets on vacation: dogs camping in a car, looking at a mountain view in the distance.
Originally published January 17th, 2022
Last updated December 18th, 2024
The new year often welcomes a fresh start, so why not take this time to organize your goals and make a vision board? But not just any vision board: a travel vision board. And a travel vision board you can incorporate with your pet in mind. Whether your goal is to go on more hikes with your furry best friend or exercise in the great outdoors, you can accomplish it this year. Here are some quick tips for making your jet-setting wishes come true with a travel vision board in 2025:
1. Reflect on your past year with compassion.
Whether you had a rough year or one filled with abundance and joy, it's crucial to think about your past year. Reflection allows us to consider what worked and what didn't. December is a great month to start planning and taking a look back at your travel adventures. Maybe you could jet with your pet on her first plane ride or take a much-needed long-distance road trip to a few pet-friendly national parks.
But perhaps you kept planning but didn't make it out of state. How did it make you feel? Think about the emotions that came with your memorable pet-friendly trips or fiascos. Whatever you do, reflect with compassion. Don't be hard on yourself if you can't afford the trip of your dreams this year or if you can't find a pet-friendly Airbnb to tag your fur babies along. Just use the time to think about what you will do differently for the year ahead to better accommodate your current situation. And even if it's not December, you can plan and reflect anytime.
2. Think about what excites you.
Where have you wanted to go and just kept pushing off exploring? What do you see yourself doing there? It could be visiting a fancy hotel like the Waldorf Astoria in Park City, Utah, and relaxing as you and your pup order room service. How about exploring St. Augustine via the pet-friendly horse and carriage ride with Country Carriages as you watch the city twinkle during its famous Nights of Lights events? Or maybe it's just camping at a national preserve with your adventure cat. If this place lights you up the moment you think about it, consider throwing it on your travel vision board.
3. Come up with a travel mantra.
Remember when you thought about how you felt during your compassionate reflection time? Use any positive emotions to help create the travel mantra you want to live in 2025. Do you feel fabulously fly whenever you throw on a sleek jacket for the fall? Or did you feel frumpy because you needed to prepare better with your wardrobe selection for your most recent trip? Channel those feelings and come up with a travel mantra to live by for 2025. Maybe you want to "delete that and repeat that" travel wardrobe or "feel fly as you fly in 2025."
Your mantra can also be simple, such as "wellness." For instance, you can focus on more relaxing, pet-friendly trips promoting wellness or self-care, such as relaxing on a dog-friendly beach, ordering room service, and enjoying a weekend staycation at a pet-friendly hotel. Whatever your travel mantra is for the year to come, use it to help you direct the look of your travel vision board and motivate you to focus on trips related to your travel mantra.
4. Think of your outfits.
Trip planning has many psychological benefits, including the excitement of the unknown and the anticipation of what's to come. But one thing you can take control of is what you wear. Aim to pack light to leave a little room for any items you bring back, including pet toys for Fido. You can incorporate some of Pinterest's Predicts 2025 trends like castlecore or cherry coded. Or you can keep it minimal and opt for what's in your closet to create your ideal travel pet-friendly capsule clothing collection.
5. Pick your platform.
Think about how you want to view your vision board. If you prefer a tangible vision board, then make it physical. Get a stack of magazines, scissors, tape, glue, and a poster board, and start cutting out images of places you would like to visit this year with your pet. But if you want to carry your vision board wherever you go, make it digital. Pick your favorite digital pinboard (we love Pinterest). Check out the LJP Pinterest board for a bit of inspiration.
6. Group your goals.
Consider organizing your goals into groups or categories to make your travel vision board more organized. For instance, you may wish to include travel-related goals on your vision board, such as building a wardrobe for your next ski trip that you plan to go on next winter. Or you can put images related to your goal of saving for a desert ranch vacation at a pet-friendly Airbnb in New Mexico that the whole family can stay at during the fall.
You can also group your travel goals by timeframes. Brian P. Moran's and Michael Lennington's book The 12 Week Year provides helpful insight on the benefits of shortening your execution process to achieve your goals from one year to 12 weeks, with the main advantage being that you would likely achieve it. By shortening the time you have to achieve your goal, you psychologically accelerate the importance of getting the steps necessary to achieve the goal faster, such as automating your savings fund now to save up for a trip in three months or booking the hotel instead of putting it off. So, consider planning your trips by the quarter instead of planning out your entire travel year. By grouping your travel goals on your vision board, you can create a cohesive board that makes it easier to see your goals and inspires you to take action to achieve them.
7. Keep it focused.
Our wants are endless, and that can mean you will never get your vision board finished if you don't get focused. Hone down the travel goals you want to achieve this year by choosing three to five destinations to visit or activities you want to check off your travel-to-do list. You can even opt for lesser-traveled places or experiences, too.
8. Make edits.
The great part about creating and updating your vision board is that it doesn't have to be started or updated at any specific time. So, whether you're reading this in January or the middle of the summer, you can create and edit your vision board at any time. Make the timeline make sense to you in your specific situation. If your fresh start happens around the fall during a new school year, start in August and plan for a fall or winter trip that rolls into multiple adventures into the following summer.
9. Revisit your travel vision board.
It's common for us to get off track during the year, but there's no harm in revisiting your vision board to remind you of what you initially set out to do. Remember that your circumstances can quickly change throughout the year and can alter your capabilities to fulfill every travel goal you have. So, give yourself grace and be happy if you even accomplish one travel goal for the year. Keep dreaming of all the possibilities of where you and your furry friend can go, but get something done.
Make your travel dreams a reality in 2025!
Even as 2024 wraps up, there's nothing like making a wishlist for the travel goals you want to accomplish this year. If traveling more is on your wishlist, consider jotting it down by starting a travel vision board. Get ready to make your travel dreams with your pet a reality, and start your travel vision board today! What's one travel goal you want to do in 2025 with your pet?