I've been going through traveller’s blogs lately, seeing how they give advice to fellow travellers on how to save money while travelling, how to pack for the trip and what transportation to use (from cheap flights to local buses). Sure, I agree with, those are useful tips, but I can still give a few pointers about basic »rules« everybody who leaves home faces with.
Strategy
Once we select a destination, we’re anxious to see it all! But mostly we’re pressed for time, thus we need a good battle plan, which we can prepare home already. The first step in planning are these two questions: “What is interesting to us personally and how much money can we spend?”
Some like history, others prefer festivals, again there are those who’d like to party and those who’d like to laze on the beach. If you know what you’d want to experience, it’s easy to cross out places which do not fit your agenda – or budget; even if most people will tell you, it’s something you should never miss out on! We can never see everything, even if we return to the same country over and over again. But then again, is this not the most important thing with travelling – finding something new?
Venous and Mars
I guess most of us encountered a situation that confirmed the title of the book: Women are from Venous and men are from Mars. I often encounter this while observing other travellers and foreign visitors. Often this thought applies to foreign tourist, which really do seem they’re from a whole different planet when compared to the locals. Usually this refers to foreign “explorers” who get to see the sights via a fancy bus that picked them up in front of their hotel and the guide gives them a few minutes of free time to soak up the foreign country. (??!!).
They “mingle” with the locals, who get rather confused as these strange visitors, due to the lack of respect for local culture seem to be from Mars. Mostly this is the place in Islamic countries, where local women are covered in fine textiles, while tourist women are rushing by in hot pants and with a V cut offering their rounds to the world. Such visitors often complain how rude people were to them, not realizing they themselves were the ones being rude in the first place.
Side note: if a woman walks around in Islamic countries with wet hair, the men will understand this as a sigh she just had sex with somebody.
Be fit
I don’t think you should look like a model or somebody who spends all the time in the fitness, but you should not be completely out of shape and breath. It really helps, if you like trekking, for on the way you never know when there will be an unplanned trek. Being fit also helps with fatigue, caused by long travels with less comfortable local transports and filled up agendas of things you want to do. Due to lack of shape immunity might fall and you can get some unpleasant health surprises. If you’re fit it will be easier to overcome such problems.
Open your eyes
It’s too often that I realize people are walking around with their eyes shut! That’s not only true for people traveling far away, but also for those staying near home. For capturing great images one doesn’t have to travel to some exotic far off location, it’s enough to open one’s eyes and walk out our own front door.
I like to compare eyes with windows, which can be wide open or hermetically sealed. The same is with people, who have their windows open or closed. Real travellers most definitely have their windows wide open and get to feel the breeze of even those hidden things, reserved for the most curious. Then there are tourists with only partly open eyes, not seeing all the beauty on the way or all the things that make a trip interesting and so varied. And there are people who really are shut to the world around them and don’t care how beautiful the world is. They’re simply blind to everything around them.
It’s really a shame not to see all the beauty that surrounds us. But then again, with their sealed of windows, they wouldn’t know what they’re mission out on anyway. Do not let your windows remain closed. Open them wide and give treats to your eyes every day anew, but the beauty this world has to offer at home or abroad at no price at all.
Ethical conduct
We should all know what’s right or wrong, so I won’t start with the basics, but will go for the ethics of taking memories – pictures. There are people and believes that do not approve of photographing. This can cause bad mood for many visitors, especially if you see an old man with a long beard, who’s so photogenic. Do you wait until he looks away and make a quick photo after the guy clearly shows he doesn’t want your kind of attention? The photo won’t be any god anyway.
Who doesn’t want to be on a photo, doesn’t want to be on a photo and that’s that. You should respect that. How’d you feel if you’d be sitting in a café with your buddies and every now and again somebody would stick a camera in front of your nose? This won’t influence your overall number of memories and moments. Even among those people that don’t like taking photos you can always find some, who don’t mind and will even like to make a few poses.
Smile and friendliness
I will never forget the little girl from a small Indian village, with whom we, although we never spoke a word, exchanged bright sunny smiles, that made my day if not the whole journey. A few days after I ever realized, that was the way she had felt. I was walking one evening in one of the streets there and she saw me. As soon as she saw me I waved at her and she ran into the next street. I thought something was wrong, when I saw her again, just moments later with her mother and little brother. She was very proud and was pointing at me as if to say: “Look mommy, that’s the white woman I was telling you about.” I wave and smile, also I nod to her mother and in both the girl’s and mother’s dark eyes I saw sparkles that made the wide smile even more beautiful.
Sometimes we really only need so little to make somebody’s day nicer. So don’t forget – a heartly warm smile opens many doors, even though in our western world we usually see that people instead of smiling use mean words to achieve their goals and wishes...
Nina Kogej
