One of the most exciting moments for someone is announcing to their friends that they are about to embark upon an adventure. This could be skiing in the snowiest of mountains, or swimming in the clearest oceans. It could even be trawling wine countries and getting to know the best scents in the vineyards. It doesn’t matter where you are going, an adventure awaits and you should embrace it! Immerse yourself in the culture that you’ve chosen to adopt, no matter how long for. The magic of adventure is not just built on your itinerary or the activities that you choose to pack into your time. It’s also about your behaviour. Learning the customs and engaging in as many of the cultural traditions as possible is the way you should behave in a new country.
Before you set your sights on your visas or download your Aadhar card for the working year, make a choice about how you want to spend your travel time. Are you heading away for a year working abroad or are you hopping through the cities, collecting as much experience as possible? Either way, you should ditch the tourist traps and get involved in the actual culture of wherever you go. Wherever you go, events like festivals and special celebrations are rife and a lot of tourists make a plan to head to these. Stay away from the ‘tourist’ festivals and visit out of season. There are still events happening, but not to pander to the visitors. These events make the locals feel involved and the community can be enriched – allow these experiences to enrich your life on a local level.
When people go abroad for a general holiday, they make a list of all the popular places to visit. Still go and see these, tick them off the bucket list, but make a point of heading off the beaten track! Find a café tucked down a cobbled side street and get to know the owner. Use your broken dialect to ask for directions to things that he thinks you would appreciate seeing. It’s always eye-opening to meet people from different cultures, and they can often tell you all about the area in a way that your guide book never could. Make sure you ask for stories from the people that you meet, too. Whenever you’re seeing something new on the recommendation of a local, ask if there is a story behind it and soak up everything you could learn that other tourists just wouldn’t know.
Ditching the tourist traps and pre-made itineraries gives you the chance to really immerse yourself in a culture that you may never have experienced in a natural way. There is an artificial feeling about travelling in some cases, but if you take the chance to try and feel at home in an entirely new place, you will open yourself up to a new world that you possibly wouldn’t have experienced before. Embrace the new and open your mind!
