intuition! Good call both times cancelling/altering vacation plans.
Three times I've had some kind of not-good feeling about a trip. The first time, bff and I were planning a trip to Belize for my 35th birthday, back in 2003. For her 35th birthday, we went to Vegas. We'd both always wanted to see Belize--me more than her though--and had barely gotten into the planning stage when a crime wave hit Belize and tourists were warned to stay away. We pivoted and went to Chicago instead. With all due respect to Kitchop, you cannot simply substitute one destination for another 😉. I love Chicago, and we had a really good time and came back with lots of fun stories, but I would've much rather gone to Belize.
The second time was in...I wanna say 2012? My niece was graduating from NYU for the second time--this time getting her master's degree--and on the day I was supposed to fly out, almost everything went wrong. I cancelled my flight and hotel room and regretfully informed Sis. My niece didn't much care that I wasn't there (maybe because I'd gone to her first NYU graduation) but Sis was BIG mad for a few days. Not sure if I did the right thing, though because my flight kept getting pushed back, I would've actually wound up coming into town a few hours too late for her graduation (I'd booked a flight so close because I got an incredible deal: $129, when normally Cleveland -> NYC would've cost me closer to $300). But me not being there freed up the family to do more things with BIL's family, who are in upstate NY, and allowed them to go stay with them in Poughkeepsie spur of the moment, so maybe that was for the best.
The third time was when I was flying to Providence, RI, for a solo vacation in 2017 (or maybe 2018...I'm bad with remembering what happened exactly when). It was to be my very first multi-day totally solo trip; I wouldn't be meeting up eventually with family or friends. As I was showering the morning of my flight, I got so nervous I was dry-heaving. I told Dad I didn't know if I should go through with the trip but as always, he gave me wonderful advice. He told me to just start off for the airport and if I still felt too nervous to go through with the trip on the drive or after I arrived at Hopkins, I could always turn around and come home. Sure enough, once I started down the driveway, the nerves diminished. Sometimes I get worked up anticipating something (good or bad) and only calm down once a course of action has been set in motion. I wound up having a great time in Rhode Island...and in Connecticut for an afternoon <g>.
