Some Real Travel advice
Dynomight wrote down some great ‘obvious’ travel advice that I loved. I lumped some of them together because I think they express the same things:
2. Who you go with matters more than where you go.
4. There’s not much point in packing light unless everyone is packing light.
3. After seeing each other for a few months, many new couples take a short trip, which often ends in an apocalyptic, relationship-destroying fight. My theory is that’s the trip working as designed—couples do these trips out of an instinctual desire to stress-test their relationships.
These are great. I would also add these (which are the same if you go hiking too!):
- You’ll usually only do as many things as the least adventuresome/slowest person in the group
- Each day only starts based on who is the last person to get up and their morning routine
- Traveling and expecting everyone to do all the same things together is a recipe for frustration and conflict.
I think the number one reason that many new couples/friends end up in a huge fight during/after travel is because of mismatched expectations. A lot can be avoided by having a very honest talk with potential travel partners about expectations before you decide to travel together.
What are your ‘must dos’/’won’t dos’ for this trip? Do you have physical, dietary, or emotional limitations others need to know about or accommodate? What parts of the trip are important to you? What does an average travel day look like for you? How much together/alone time do you want or need? How much can you physically do (walking/hiking/swimming/kayaking/etc) in a day?
Talk about your ideal travel day with the other(s). Share different wish lists of activities or downtime you each would like. Make sure you mesh. As you get older, you learn to ask these questions and gravitate towards travel partners that travel like you do. Mature couples know what things they can do together and which you can send them off to do while you enjoy your activity.
If this sounds like the same kinds of questions you should have before dating/marrying – you’d be right. Life is just a 60 year journey/travel through life together after all.
Anyway, here’s more:
1. Mindset matters more than where you go.
6. Cultures vary in lots of arbitrary ways—how loud to talk, how (or if) to wait in line, how close to stand to other people, how to behave when you walk into a shop, how to smell, when you can blow your nose, etc. It’s good to be aware of these both as a producer of behavior (not offending others) and a consumer of behavior (not being offended when you’re not “supposed” to be).
7. Different places have different “rules” like if you’re supposed to order drinks before or after food, when you can drink which kinds of coffee, or if you’re allowed (or encouraged) to slurp when eating noodles. After seeing all these variations, it’s hard not to see them as silly, but life is short and I suggest you mostly just conform.
22. If you spend a ton of money and stay in very expensive hotels and whatever, you can eliminate almost all of the frustration and uncertainty of travel. But it also feels like you never leave the global monoculture
If the point of travel is to experience something new; then insulating yourself from that newness defeats the purpose. One of travel’s number one lessons is that you learn there are whole countries of people that do things differently and they don’t collapse overnight. Rick Steves reminds people that you don’t have to pack everything – you can buy almost anything you need in other countries. Millions of people survive just fine on what they find in their local stores – so can you if you’re willing to try a new kind of toothpaste or wear local made socks.
This teaches you that not everything has to happen as you want and that flexibility is a muscle you can build. It’s fun watching 20-somethings travel overseas. After those first trips, they come back and LOVE to loudly tell everyone that country X does things so much better. After my years of travel, it’s more the truth that different ways of doing things are not always ‘better’ or ‘worse’, but instead have balanced different different pros and cons. Every way of doing things has pros and cons. The question is, what does that way maximize and what are you sacrificing for that goal?
11. You can wash clothes in the sink. I think basically everyone does this but doesn’t talk about it?
12. Clothes dry much faster with body heat.
I definitely hand wash and stain treat things in my sink when needed; but I have also discovered the joys of getting your clothes locally laundered. Many hotels/hostels have laundromats for some local coins, but you might also ask your hostel/hotel if there is a nearby laundry service. I still remember the little hole in the wall laundry place in Rome with an old lady that did my entire backpack of clothes for 1/3 of what it would have cost in the hostel basement. And they were SO clean and folded in a way I have never seen things folded. There’s nothing like putting on a fresh pair of laundered socks and underwear when traveling.
10. Some places sell “travel” clothes, e.g. “travel” pants made of quick-drying nylon with zippers so the pants can convert to shorts. While I maintain you should fly your flag high, I also really, really, really think you might be more comfortable if you weren’t wearing these.
Nothing screams ‘American tourist’ more than those nylon pants with zipper off legs. Like it or not, you’ll be treated as a tourist. Instead, what I now do is watch some YouTube videos of the places I’m going and bring clothes that would blend in with the local garb. I have succeeded when I travel to another country and a local will start speaking to me in the local language first before realizing I’m a tourist. Or even better, buy some local clothes. There was nothing like getting fitted for some dress shirts in a fancy store in Rome (ps: I’m not cut like a skinny Italian guy anymore :D)
23. Despite being only 0.3% of the world’s population, Australians seem to make up 10% of overseas visitors everywhere on the planet. Do not be disturbed by this well-known optical illusion.
I laughed because this is so true. I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere in the world I didn’t run into a traveling Australian. Doubly true if you do any hosteling.
Definitely read the rest, because they’re really good.
