Cruise ships are for tourists. Real travel is for wanderers who don鈥檛 want to just see, but experience something different. Packing and planning take a back seat to learning how to simply be in this game. So leave your guidebook at home, snip the Canadian flag patch off your pack, strip down bare, and walk into the world. You鈥檒l come home different from how you left.
–Porter Fox, editor of the travel writing journal
10. Lose the Technical Travel Wear
It is no more essential to wear waterproof microfiber pants that turn into shorts in a foreign city than it is in your local grocery store. Dress well when you travel. Nice clothes like button down shirts tend to blend in better than blue jeans or T-shirts. Spend the money you make selling your technical travel pants and waterproof fanny pack to buy a few local garments. Shop at an open market or a thrift store and try to avoid boutiques that sell to tourists trying to not look like tourists.
You aren鈥檛 shooting photos for a magazine. You鈥檒l probably look at your travel photos less than five times in this lifetime. So get off your knees and put your ridiculously advanced camera away. A camera lens is a barrier between you and the place you are. Live in the actual place instead and reflect on the memories for the rest of your life. If you must, get a 10 megapixel point-and-shoot that鈥檒l make your blog, Facebook or Flickr page pop, and keep it in your pocket where no one can see it.
8. Get Lost
If you want to sightsee, surf the internet. If you want to learn about another culture, leave your guidebook at home and walk, eat and commute with the locals. Research the layout of a place鈥攄istricts, ethnic quarters, industries, public places, monuments, museums鈥攕o you know what to look for. Then pick an intersection and general direction and see what you find. (A compass can be helpful.) If you have to carry a list or a map, fold it into the book you鈥檙e reading. You鈥檒l be treated differently and find places you would鈥檝e otherwise missed.
7. Go to Church
Go to church on Sunday (or Saturday), even if you鈥檙e a nonbeliever. It鈥檚 the world鈥檚 oldest gathering place where locals socialize, gossip, hang out and are generally at ease. Meaning you can get to know them and the way and place they live.
6. Self Propel
Find a bike, car, motorcycle or canoe and gain independence over your itinerary. Once you can stop and go when and where you please, the tourist trail loses its grip. You can see off-the-beaten path ruins or stop at a village halfway between here and there. I once stopped a man in the middle of the street in southern Thailand and rented his moped for three days. I covered 500 miles on that little bike I never would have seen otherwise.
5. Stop Buying Stuff
You don鈥檛 have to own a piece of something to remember it. Leave trinkets, rugs, antiques and T-shirts on the racks and collect things instead: matchbooks, seashells, sketches in a sketchbook, stories in a journal. And whatever you do, don鈥檛 talk about real estate. Imperialism is out of style.
4. Learn How to Tip
Don鈥檛 add to economic and cultural erosion by tipping the way you would in New York City. Ask about local tipping customs and stick to them. You鈥檙e not being cheap, you鈥檙e just being normal.
3. Eat with the Locals
Kitchens are the hub of every culture. Stay away from fancy restaurants and find ones that are full at noon and midnight. That鈥檚 the local crowd鈥hey wouldn鈥檛 be there unless it was good. (No one outside of America goes out for breakfast.) Plan to spend a few hours and talk to your neighbors if you can. You鈥檒l likely learn more out about the area than the food.
The best way to research a destination is to read fiction: Maupassant in Paris; Borges in Buenos Aires; MuXin in China; Mrabet in Morocco, Atiq Rahimi in Afghanistan. There鈥檚 more contextual detail on how people are or what a place is like in a novel or short story than any guidebook. Words Without Borders ( is a good first stop. The nonprofit magazine publishes monthly and categorizes its writers by country.
Forget the phrasebook. You can get by in any foreign country with these six words/phrases: hello, thank you, sorry, how much, bathroom and where. Study the local accent and learn to speak the words perfectly. When locals answer you, nod and read their gestures and tone. You鈥檒l pick up more vocabulary, slowly. Get the pronunciation right. When pressed, shrug and say sorry.
An extra tip, if you want it鈥
Stop Moving
Stop and look around every now and then. Sit at a caf茅, read in the park, take a siesta on a bench. The more you try to pack in to a trip, the less you鈥檒l see. By sitting and watching, you disappear into the background and get a fly-on-the-wall perspective on wherever you are. And they get a break from you.
Porter Fox edits the literary travel writing journal in Brooklyn, New York. See writing by , Larry Fagin, 脡velyne Trouillot and more at . Or visit them on .