Thoughts on 2024 from Newark Airport, Terminal C

Travel, anxiety, and an abdication

Welcome to 2024, Fascinator readers! Thank you for indulging me over the multiple weeks off I took for the holidays. I hope you’ve had a restful, restorative midwinter. Here’s where I find myself as I look ahead to my content this month.

What I’m up to

January always feels like an extension of the holidays for me; my family has to keep the celebrations going well into the end of winter. Not only is my birthday at the end of January, but so is my dad’s (it’s actually the day before mine). Three days later is my youngest brother’s, and our middle brother’s is at the end of February. And in a recent addition to the roster, mister_of_fact’s birthday is this week!

Pulling myself out of holiday mode before we begin January’s round of birthday dinners and parties, in a typical year, feels pointless. This year, though, I went and made things even more complicated by booking a very impromptu trip to Ireland and England! I’ll be traveling with a friend for the next 10 days on my first international trip since 2018, then returning to the States to celebrate everyone in turn with my friends and family.

I don’t know where I was going with this, other than to let you know that I’m still not back to “business as usual.” Then again, I don’t know that I’ve even gotten a handle on what “business as usual” will look like for me in 2024. I’m self-employed for the first time ever, still adjusting to the fact that not working for 8 solid hours every weekday is…okay? Encouraged, even?

And what better way to disassociate my sense of self-fulfillment from the concept of a 40-hour workweek than by traveling and celebrating my loved ones for the entire month of January? No rise ‘n grind culture for me to start the new year, thanks.

Somehow, though, I don’t see this inhibiting my Substack output—as long as you don’t mind some travel blogs mixed in with our royal musings for a bit!

My itinerary (and also my anxiety)

I used to be so good at planning a European vacation. And by “used to,” I’m referring back to my Travel Girl Era in 2016, when I was a college kid linking up with other college kids. We could often be found hostel-hopping anywhere from Scandinavia to Portugal. And by “planning,” I mean something much more lackadaisical than you’re probably imagining. Our stops were selected based solely on vibes. If it didn’t fit in a carry-on, it wasn’t coming along. And alarms going off at 5am so that we could catch the bus to the train to the airport to board the cheapest flight imaginable didn’t really bother us.

Everything on those trips kind of just…always worked out. I vaguely remember one friend getting pickpocketed (I think at a German Christmas market?) and losing her passport, but in the end, everyone always made it to their next destination unscathed.

Two degrees, one pandemic, and 8 years later, and I’m feeling much differently about traveling. I’ve pored over transit routes, labored over the perfect “capsule wardrobe” and suitcase combination, and compared hotel prices for so long that inflation probably made them more expensive before I settled on anything.

And everyone has so many opinions these days! Like any self-respecting content creator with Instagram stories, I’ve asked for follower recommendations for each city on our route—which is, by the way, pretty much set in stone. And approximately one in every ten responses will inevitable include something like, “Don’t go to Dublin at all; it’s a tourist trap. Go to [insert out-of-the-way town/city/scenic drive] instead!” Sorry, well-meaning friend! The hotel is already booked! But thanks for the judgment!

To add a very existential layer to this general travel anxiety, it’s also been the perfect opportunity to reflect on how much I’ve aged since I traveled solo for a semester in France in January 2016. The teenagers putting Drunk Elephant skincare on their Christmas lists didn’t hit me too hard—after all, my own teenage years saw me consume way too many tubes of Estee Lauder Double Wear Foundation. But feeling myself balk at the sight of the London Underground map, and decide that it actually is better to just pay for a month on an international phone plan “just in case…”

Those things got me.

In short, your girl is feeling not only stressed, but also a tad helpless in the face of how much effort it is suddenly taking to travel. I’ve been stressing myself out so badly that the excitement I should be feeling over landing in Ireland in 12 hours hasn’t really hit me. So, as I sit at the surprisingly well-lit gate in Terminal C at EWR, I’m trying to muster up that enthusiasm. ‘

On the plus side, I’m cautiously optimistic that my travel brain will kick in as soon as we land on the other side of the Atlantic. That my apprehension and anxieties will dissolve as soon as I’m no longer actively “traveling,” and have a place to stow my luggage.

We’ll be landing in Dublin, then venturing out to County Wicklow, Galway, the Cliffs of Moher, and Killarney before hopping over to London for a few days. I’m excited to show my friend the sights in London, which I’ve visited twice and she’s been one time, for a grand total of 7 hours. I’m also excited to properly see Ireland for the first time, having only used it as a layover location in the past!

This turned into much more of a diary entry than I had initially intended, but arriving at your terminal 5 hours early will turn a girl reflective, I suppose.

On the horizon

While we’re abroad, a historic abdication and accession will take place in Denmark. Both are slated for the afternoon of Sunday, January 14th. Luckily, the lack of any grand coronation ceremony to mark the occasion means that my commentary should fit seamlessly into our travel plans. I’ll likely be sharing updates on my Instagram stories during a bus ride from Galway to Killarney, and round off the evening with a video recap.

I’m also finding the lack of activity on the British Monarchy’s part a blessing for once, instead of an annoyance. Charles, just don’t get any ideas about announcing anything big until I get back to the states, okay?