New Year’s resolutions have a bad reputation, and for good reason. Most fail by February. The gym membership languishes, the diet crumbles at the first dinner party, and the language app sits unopened while we scroll social media instead. But what if we aimed for resolutions that aren’t about deprivation or discipline; ones that might actually stick because they add richness rather than restriction?
As travellers, we’re uniquely positioned to make resolutions that reshape not just our habits but how we see the world and how the world might see us. With 2026 on the horizon and with it, more trips, more encounters, and more opportunities to connect across borders, here are some travel resolutions worth considering.
Resolution 1: Learn ten words in the local language before every trip
Not fluency. Not conversational competence. Just ten words: hello, thank you, excuse me, please, yes, no, good morning, delicious, beautiful, and goodbye. That’s it.
Ten words won’t make you fluent, but they’ll do something more important: they signal respect. When you greet someone in their language, even badly, you’re acknowledging that you’re the guest, they’re the host, and you’ve made an effort to meet them partway. The warmth that gesture generates: the smile, the surprised nod, the willingness to help. It all pays dividends far beyond what the vocabulary itself achieves.
This is a resolution that’s achievable. Download a language app, spend fifteen minutes before your trip practicing pronunciation, write the words on a card in your pocket. By the time you board the plane, you’ll have them. And you’ll use them dozens of times before the trip ends.
Resolution 2: Say yes to something that scares you (just a little)
Travel is supposed to push boundaries, but many of us have spent years carefully constructing a comfort zone even within our adventures. We skip the hikes that look too steep, avoid foods we don’t recognize, and politely decline invitations that feel too spontaneous.
What if 2026 is the year you say yes to something you’d normally sidestep? Not recklessly, we’re not suggesting you BASE jump in the Alps, but thoughtfully. Take the cooking class even though you’re not a cook. Join the optional snorkelling excursion even though you’re nervous in deep water. Strike up a conversation with the person sitting next to you on the train even though small talk with strangers makes you anxious.
The magic often lives just beyond the edge of your comfort zone, in the things you didn’t think you’d do until you did them. And then they become the stories you tell for years.
Resolution 3: Be the Canadian the world needs right now
It’s impossible to ignore that the world order feels less stable than it did a few years ago. Friendly places don’t always feel as welcoming. Politics have hardened. Borders feel more fraught. In that environment, it’s tempting to hunker down, keep your head low, and stick to the familiar.
But here’s another option: resolve to embody the best of what it means to be Canadian when you travel. Not in a flag-waving, “we’re better than everyone” way, but in the quieter virtues that Canada is known for: politeness, humility, curiosity, and a genuine openness to difference.
What does that look like in practice?
- Listen more than you speak. When conversations turn to politics or culture, resist the urge to explain or correct. Ask questions. Assume there’s something you don’t yet understand.
- Be gracious when things go wrong. Flight delayed? Hotel room not ready? Rain on your beach day? How you respond to inconvenience sets a tone that ripples outward. A smile and a “these things happen” goes a long way.
- Show curiosity about local life. Don’t just take; give attention. Ask your guide what they love about their city. Ask the restaurant owner how long they’ve been in business. Show up as a learner, not just a consumer.
A lot of this is embodied in our community philosophy “The Wheel & Anchor Way”, but it’s worth keeping in mind particularly in a world that sometimes feels divided and defensive. Travellers who approach difference with warmth and humility can be small agents of goodwill. You won’t change geopolitics, but you might change one person’s impression of Canadians – and that’s not nothing!
Resolution 4: Unplug for at least one hour a day
This one’s harder than it sounds. Our phones have become extensions of our hands, and travel amplifies that: we’re navigating with maps, translating menus, photographing everything, checking weather, messaging home, and scrolling through travel tips.
But constant connectivity has a cost. You miss the details when you’re framing the shot instead of experiencing the moment. You miss conversations when you’re half-present, glancing at notifications. You miss serendipity when every minute is planned and optimized through an app.
So here’s the resolution: commit to one phone-free hour every day while travelling. It could be breakfast, where you sit and people-watch without Instagram in the way. It could be a walk through a neighbourhood with no destination and no GPS, just your feet and your curiosity. It could be dinner, where your phone stays in your bag and your full attention stays at the table.
An hour isn’t a digital detox. It’s just a small reclaiming of presence and travel is too precious to experience secondhand through a screen.
Resolution 5: Go somewhere you’ve never considered
We all have dream destinations: the places we’ve been researching for years, the trips we’re saving for, the bucket-list boxes we’re determined to tick. Those trips are worth taking. But what if one of your trips in 2026 is to a place that’s never been on your radar?
Maybe it’s a country you can’t picture clearly. Maybe it’s a region you always thought was “too far” or “not my style.” Maybe it’s a trip style you’ve never tried, a slow-paced LiveAway when you usually prefer tightly packed itineraries, or a small group departure when you usually travel solo or with a partner.
The destinations we don’t expect to love are sometimes the ones that surprise us most, precisely because we arrive without preconceptions. There’s no mental checklist to complete, no comparison to the glossy brochure version. You’re just there, open and curious, and that openness creates space for discovery.
If Wheel & Anchor announces a trip to a place you’ve never heard of or a style you’ve never tried, consider it. Say “why not?” instead of “not for me.” The best trips are sometimes the ones you didn’t plan.
Resolution 6: Travel lighter (literally and metaphorically)
Every seasoned traveller knows the pain of overpacking: the suitcase you can barely lift, the shoes you never wore, the “just in case” items that stayed buried at the bottom of your bag for two weeks.
Resolve to pack less in 2026. Not as an exercise in deprivation, but as an experiment in freedom. A lighter bag is easier to carry, easier to repack, and easier to fit into small hotel rooms or overhead bins. It forces you to choose versatile pieces, to wear things multiple times, and to let go of “what if” thinking.
But travelling lighter isn’t just about luggage. It’s also about carrying fewer expectations, fewer rigid plans, and fewer complaints when things don’t go according to plan. It’s about showing up with a light heart, ready for whatever unfolds, willing to adapt, and open to the fact that the best parts of travel are often unplanned.
Resolution 7: Stay in touch with someone you meet
One of travel’s quiet sadnesses is how easily connections fade. You spend a week laughing with someone over meals, swapping stories, sharing small adventures and then you go home, exchange a few emails, and gradually drift back into your separate lives.
What if 2026 is the year you actually stay in touch with at least one person you meet on a trip? Not in a forced, awkward way, but in the spirit of genuine friendship. Send a message at Christmas. Share a photo when you see something that reminds you of them. Invite them to visit if they’re ever in Canada. These friendships, if tended even lightly, can outlast the trip that created them and years later, you might find yourself meeting up again on another adventure, picking up right where you left off.
The Wheel & Anchor community is built on these connections. Some of our closest travel friendships started as seatmates on a minibus in Portugal or roommates on a small ship in Croatia. Those relationships don’t happen by accident; they happen when someone decides to follow up, to reach out, and to treat the connection as something worth maintaining.
Resolutions you might actually keep
The reason most New Year’s resolutions fail is that they demand too much: total transformation, constant willpower, dramatic lifestyle overhauls. Travel resolutions can be different. They’re small, specific, and tied to activities you’re already planning to do.
You’re going to travel in 2026, that’s not in question. The question is how you’ll travel: with what mindset, what openness, what spirit. These resolutions aren’t about becoming a different person. They’re about leaning a little further into curiosity, kindness, courage, and presence.
Learn ten words. Say yes to something new. Be gracious. Unplug for an hour. Go somewhere unexpected. Pack lighter. Stay in touch. Seven simple ideas, any one of which could shift how you experience the world – and how the world experiences you.
As we close out 2025 and look ahead to another year of discovery, these feel like resolutions worth making. Not because they’re hard, but because they’re doable. Not because they’re trendy, but because they matter.
Here’s to 2026: a year of journeys that surprise us, connections that endure, and resolutions we might actually keep.