How to Travel Like a Pro
Whether it’s eating something unrecognizable or struggling to communicate in a language you don’t understand, traveling is the surest way to leave your comfort zone. It means talking to strangers, getting lost, taking risks, and opening your mind to new experiences. To visit a foreign country is to see it through the eyes of a child, with an attitude of wonder that engages all the senses. And inevitably, learning about a different culture means gaining comparative insight into our own. It’s a well-worn cliché, but travel to distant lands nearly always sparks the realization that we humans are more alike than different, despite our vastly divergent lifestyles, customs and cuisines. Travel changes you, usually for the better. And there’s no going back.
The real question is not Should I go? but How will I return to normal life after?
My time-tested advice for travelers:
1. Just say yes.
You may only visit the Azores this once, so when the owner of your AirBnb says you should drive to the far end of the island at sunset to lower yourself down a rickety pool ladder into a crater where the Atlantic Ocean runs to hot tub-temperatures thanks to the geothermal springs bubbling beneath the surface, just do it. Your kids may later claim that you put their lives in danger climbing down the volcanic rock into a boiling hot ocean with just a loose rope to hold onto to avoid being swept out to sea, but they’ve always been a bit dramatic. You’re still here, aren’t you?
Ditto for diving with sharks in Barcelona, biking down a volcano in Maui, and rappelling deep into a Mexican cave to enter a metaphorical underworld after being blessed by a Mayan shaman, among other adventures.
2. Just eat it.
Will I ever have the chance to dine on slow-roasted goat at a Christmas dinner in Portugal again? Probably not. Plus, my host has just gone to a great deal of effort to include me in his family celebration and it would be rude not to try a bit of the brains, wouldn’t it? It’s chalky and game-y and I’d never willingly put this in my mouth again, but he’s very pleased and now you can say you ate goat brains for Christmas dinner in Sintra. A glass of port will wash away the taste.
My advice for ordering in a restaurant when you don’t speak the language and can’t read the menu? Let your waiter decide. Ask, using Google translate if necessary, what he recommends. And then eat it. It’s respectful to try the local cuisine, unfamiliar as it may be. Don’t be the proverbial ugly American, expecting a burger with ketchup wherever you might be in the world. And who knows? You may discover a love for pho or sweetbreads or escargots.
3. Talk to strangers.
If I hadn’t gotten into a conversation with the Ukrainian immigrant waiter at the tapas bar in Stockholm I’d never know that a doctor’s visit, without insurance, costs approximately $28 in Sweden. And if I hadn’t talked to the owners of the farm where my family stayed in Poitiers, I wouldn’t know that French civil service employees get 10 weeks paid vacation a year. Yeah, socialism sucks.
I find myself continuously surprised by the kindness of strangers, and the willingness of people from vastly different cultures, religions, and socio-economic backgrounds, to go out of their way to help a traveler to their region. I remember the businessman on his way home from work who took the time to accompany me and my two kids on the subway back to our neighborhood when we found ourselves wandering lost at night in a rare Paris snowstorm. I remember the taxi driver in Rome who refused payment for the midnight ride to a children’s hospital when my daughter had a fever. The takeaway lesson: most people are decent.
4. Get lost.
This one is easy for me. I can get lost anywhere, but getting lost in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language is a unique experience. Was wandering around the vast, city-size Shinjuku subway station in Tokyo for two hours with my teenage son a bonding experience? Yes it was. And I never would have known that the public restrooms in Japanese subway stations are nicer than those in any 5-star hotel, with heated seats, multiple flush options, and buttons for white noise, music, or extra flushing sounds.
5. Learn to tolerate discomfort.
Travel can be uncomfortable, there’s no way around it. When you’re crammed into your non-reclining economy class seat in the very back row next to the bathrooms on an overnight flight; or deciding whether to nap or power through until bedtime after 36 hours of sleepless door-to-door travel; or standing in an endless line of tourists outside the Louvre, Vatican, fill-in-the-tourist-attraction-blank, you may question why you have spent vast sums of money to suffer like this. But the suffering sets you up for the truly sublime moments, like when you are sitting with your favorite person next to a toasty heat lamp in the shadow of an ancient basilica in Rome, eating a seafood risotto that is almost a religious experience, and perusing the restaurant’s phone book-thick wine list. All is right with the world and you feel absolutely, blissfully content. This is why you travel.
The incredible, beautiful, moving moments are the ones that stick in my memory and convince me that it’s all worthwhile. And the terrible, stupid, slightly dangerous parts become funny stories to share at parties.
