The Way We Travel: Top Ten Traveler's Experiences
Local women in Patacancha, Peru (Karen Kefauver)
Traveling solo for two months this fall in Brazil and Peru, I talked to dozens of international travelers in town plazas, youth hostels, jungle lodges, and farmers' markets. Some visitors were South Americans on weekend getaways, others were Europeans or Australians traveling for a year. Many of the Americans I encountered were participating in adventure travel activities like hiking to Machu Picchu, river rafting, mountain biking, or trekking in the Andes or Amazon.
What I learned from my fellow travelers is that no matter our budget or length of trip, our best (and worst) stories centered around the same handful of themes time and time again. So to help you get in the mindset for your next trip, here's my list of the top-ten recurring preoccupations of travelers everywhere. Have I missed something? Have your own travel anecdotes to tell? Add your thoughts to the comments section below.
1. Transportation
A harrowing taxi ride, the white-knuckle cable-car ride to the top of Rio's Sugarloaf Mountain, or a night tour spent atop a double-decker bus as it rattles through the Andes—no doubt, tales of transport woe are an instant icebreaker. After all, isn't getting there half the challenge?
2. Health
Staying healthy on the road is naturally a prime preoccupation of the traveler, although sometimes getting sick quite literally goes with the territory as you adjust to your new conditions and surroundings. I got bronchitis at a remote jungle lodge in the Amazon and had to skip the overnight trek. Uncomfortable and inconvenient, sure, but it could've been worse—plus I now have the tale to tell! Speaking of which, travelers love to talk about their exotic parasites, bugs (literally) they've picked up along the way, and those strange dreams brought on by Lariam, an anti-malarial drug that has some well-documented side effects.
3. Animal Encounters
Taking our cue from the Big Five safari spotters, run-ins with local wildlife provide lots of good copy. And it doesn't just have to be seeing a lion out on the veldt: While staying at a home in Patacancha, Peru, high up in the Andes, I grew quite fond of the seven guinea pigs running around the dirt-floored kitchen. They did not have names—since they were occasionally served for dinner.
4. Food
Which brings us conveniently to food. We spend our days on the road either chasing down or flat-out avoiding the most exotic and unusual delicacies. While in Peru, I couldn't bring myself to eat guinea pig, a local specialty served on special occasions. I did, however, share a memorable meal with a quartet of men who relished this roast animal. And everybody has their little black book of favorite local eateries, be it a hole-in-the-wall restaurant or roadside snack vendor. Just be sure to get your noses out of your guidebook and ask around for the latest and greatest local flavors.
5. Lodging
Whether it's the lumpy (and much used) bunk bed in a youth hostel, the spa at a five-star luxury resort, or a swaying hammock under the rainforest canopy, where you sleep—like your mode of transport to get from A to B—is one of those elemental waymarkers of the whole travel experience. It's also a great source of useful travel intel that stays with you on future trips. For example, in Manaus, Brazil, I discovered that the cheap hotels in this Amazon gateway city charge tiered, hourly rates—but that price structure was not actually intended for travelers!
6. Air Travel
No matter when it strikes, whether home or abroad, missed flights, lost baggage, or last-minute cancellations are an excruciating hassle. As is learning local air annoyances on the fly, like when I had to pay an extra fee to "rebook" my ticket on the same airline to get out of São Paulo, Brazil, following an eight-hour overnight delay after a missed connection, through no fault of my own.
7. Friends/Romance
This is one of those things for which you can't really prepare until you hit the road, whether it's the passionate whirlwind romance, a first reunion with a long-lost family member, or even that annoying guy who everyone wishes would just get off the backpacker bus. Here it can pay to be as spontaneous as possible, using your new-found friends as sources of inspiration, on-the-ground intel, and other unprintable misadventures. During my South American trip, I was lucky enough to meet a fellow travel writer, Marilyn Diggs, while visiting São Paulo, with whom I had only corresponded online. It was not only great to meet her, it was also cool to get her take on living abroad for the past 20 years.
8. Language
Grappling with a new language can be a great way to connect with locals, no matter how much you butcher the local lingo (case in point: In Ollantaytambo, Peru, I discovered that I could not say even the simplest words in Quechua, one of Peru's surviving indigenous languages—but at least I tried!). It's also an endless source of inadvertent cultural faux-pas, hopefully enabling you to laugh at yourself... or at the very least, the locals at you.
9. Technology
Not so long ago, the most advanced equipment travelers took on their travels was a good SLR camera and maybe a Walkman (remember those?). But these days, a veritable arsenal of high-tech gadgetry accompanies us on our world travels. Ensuring the powering, servicing, and utilization of said gear has become a prime preoccupation of the 21st-century traveler. And, multimedia devices aside, over the course of two months in South America, I used email and posted to my blog, Twitter, and Facebook. I didn't even use Skype! We owe a big hat tip to the entrepreneurial locals who keep us interconnected along the way.
10. Inspiration
We're all looking to be inspired wherever we go, be that by glimpsing a world wonder like Machu Picchu, or just having a conversation that changes our worldview. In Manaus, Brazil, I was inspired by meeting a man named Pavel, who was raised in England by Russian parents and is currently living in Korea. He had just finished an eight-month solo bike tour through the Amazon where he had encountered snakes, spiders, and sand bogs which required him to push his bike for hours and hours. And don't overlook the changes you might see in yourself or a traveling partner, either. For better or worse, these things can be life-changing!
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Nice observations. I remember the bus trips in Mexico and Indonesia more than almost anything else on my trips. In Mexico sharing space with chickens and other critters and the friendly passengers. In Indonesia it was 15-20mph for 6 hours on muddy roads crammed shoulder-to-shoulder with chain smoking, sweaty folks who were curious but friendly. Still amazed that somehow I would sleep for hours at a time...
Posted by: Alex | November 19, 2008 at 05:44 PM
I really enjoyed this Top Ten list. I liked the combination of objective tips and personal observation.
Posted by: Judy Wylie | November 19, 2008 at 03:48 PM