You’ll rarely regret the trip you took on a small budget. You’ll regret the one you kept saying you’d take next year.

Waiting for the good version of a plan is how the plan quietly expires. The cheap trip with too many people in one room, bad food and no schedule, tends to become the story, while the well-funded one that kept sliding to next year becomes nothing at all. Conditions rarely improve enough to make the decision for you.

If something keeps getting pushed, find the small version and do that one. An hour on a train, one night, somebody’s floor. If money is the real obstacle right now, the same logic covers anything free you keep postponing.