So a good while ago, I was tagged by both Stephanie and Nancy to be part of the “3 travel secrets” chain started by Katie over at TripBase. The idea is to give 3 of your secrets on your blog and forward the meme to 5 fellow travel bloggers who will do the same. Katie initially hoped to reach 100 secrets, which I think indicates that she doesn’t do much maths – you’d reach well over 400 in only 4 iterations. But since I’m late to the game, I won’t tease her about it, and instead congratulate her on how huge her project has gotten 
And here I am, bringing my contribution to her work with not 3 but 5 travel tips I have built through experience.
1. Don’t assume taxi drivers ever know where they are going.
Even if they use navigation system.
Through work and even voluntarily, I go to weird places. Really weird places. Last one I went to, off the industrial harbour of Incheon, I’d have benefitted from using a 4-wheel drive vehicle – quite the achievement in over-urbanized Korea. A few things will help you get where you want. Try writing down (or better, print, as penmanships are quite culture-dependent and could confuse your driver) the name and address of your destination. Better yet, bring a map, either from the internet or from whoever is meeting you at your arrival point. Even better, and absolutely foolproof so far, is to call the place on your cellphone and put your driver on the line. This method has been a life saver many times, when the taxi and I did not share a common language and they could not read the latin alphabet.
2. Learn from locals
Sometimes it’s fun to go somewhere free of all preconceptions and completely wing it. But when you decide to get some groundwork done beforehand, the first source you should hit, after the unavoidable guidebook, are those who have walked the road before you. You will get so much useful information from fellow travelers. Better than travelers are the local expat’ crowd, and better yet than the expats, are the countries nationals. When you strike up a conversations on how to plan your next month or what to do tonight, the great thing is the personal connection you get that doesn’t happen with a guidebook. Depending on the gut feeling that person gives you, you will choose to follow their advice blindly, or do the exact opposite. It will put into perspective what you may have read until then. Also, unlike publications, people don’t prioritize or edit their favourite memories, so you may end up discovering a great little gem that couldn’t make it to the current editon of the LP.
I love how super confidential places make their way into the community through word of mouth. Sometimes you can almost trace back their progression, especially if you stay in the same place for a while.
3. Carry a notebook
Always! I carry a tiny spiral notebook that fits in my handbag (I have a tiny handbad, hardly bit enough for my wallet, keys and cellphone) and it is so useful for:
- writing down random words of foreign vocabulary (mostly food stuff, actually!)
- drawing maps of how to go back to that great treehouse café (ha! If only! Alas, I was never able to find the treehouse café in the alleyways off Omotesando, Tokyo) or that one shop (note to self: there is a Lush store outside Hangik university station! Just turn right at the second corner and then go straight uphill. Please find it again!)
- doodling while your plane is delayed
- playing pictionnary when you don’t share a language with someone and the phrasebook and miming have reached their limits
4. Cash
You’d be amazed at how rare ATMs turn the minute you need them, or how it is suddently impossible to find one that will accept your foreign card, or speak to you in anything but Chinese. Always carry cash. And then don’t get pickpocketted. An emergency stash in a major currency (dollar or euro, or, in Asia, yen) is a good idea.
5. Feel free to move at your own pace.
Sometimes, you feel that you aren’t holding up to some standards of travel. You don’t see enough must-sees, you kick yourself for lazing around, you don’t engage with stangers as much as you wish you did, you move on faster than the guidebook says you should.
Let go of the remorse. There’s no point in trying to keep up with the backpacking Jones. They’re imaginary. And they’re not you.
A few years ago when I first went to Bali on a tight schedule, I got a lot of slack from my travel buddies for deciding to stay put one morning. They were going hiking in the rice paddies and checking out a batik studio. I stayed on the rooftop terrasse of our guesthouse, drank some coffee and read a novel, while listening to the streets of Ubud waking up. But I felt bad. My 2 roommates made their opinion clear that travelers should be getting the most out of their limited time, that you have your whole life to read novels ; don’t do it when rice paddies are waiting.
But you know what? I’ve never been a girl scout, I like my hikes in small doses. And as much as I like crafts, and you know I like them a lot, I’d rather read about batik making than attend a workshop for tourists. I absolutely understand that people have different tastes, and I now know that -of course- it applies to travel as well.
With time, I learned to enjoy my moments on the road the way I like them, not the way some perfect traveler archetype does. What I like is to sit at terrasses (and in bars and restaurants, and in trains, and in public gardens), to eat the local food, read and enjoy the world around me, slowly. I may not be able to tick most or even many items off the Lonely Planet, but I actually enjoy myself. It does not make me any less of a traveller.
