MarcResidents of popular destinations say it like they’re spitting a foul taste out of their mouths. It’s practically a dirty word among certain groups: tourist. The term conjures a very specific image — gaudy attire, inconsiderate actions, moving in large crowds, generally in the way — and it’s something I don’t think anyone actually wants to be associated with.
But that’s not to say that traveling is bad. Traveling is the best part of life, in my opinion. But being a traveler, not a tourist, requires some intentional choices and an awareness of your actions. A few relatively simple decisions can make all the difference for your experience to ensure you truly maximize your travel life.
Embrace Discomfort
A tourist doesn’t like to be uncomfortable. Tourists eat at chain restaurants, they don’t venture beyond the paved path, and they don’t visit a place not specifically mentioned in the pamphlets at the visitor center. Tourists are uncomfortable working through a language barrier. Tourists always want to know what to expect.
The life of a traveler is one of new experiences and unknown challenges. Clinging to the known, the comfortable, the familiar, will only prevent you from meeting life’s true potential. Eat the new dish. Talk to the stranger. Try the new challenge. Take the risk.
If you stay isolated within your bubble of comfort, you will never truly experience the place you’re visiting. Instead, you will experience the part that has been sanitized and manufactured for the masses. It’s okay to get lost while exploring a new place, just keeps your wits about you. Maintain a general sense of direction and be smart with where you wander.
Before traveling somewhere new, I always download offline copies of Google Maps for the region, as well as learn the basics of communication if there’s a language barrier (greetings, asking for directions, thank you, etc.). This allows me to feel more empowered to wander new areas and absorb my surroundings.
Find a Sense of Place
Traveling exposes you to an entirely new world, regardless of where you go. It’s this exposure to the new and unfamiliar that will provide you with the most positive impact. You learn new things and gain new perspective. But in order to do so, you need to truly experience the places you visit.
The tourist centers of cities and attractions are designed for two things: comfort and separation of money from wallets. Unless you are intentional about seeking out the real version of the places you visit, you will only experience a manufactured reality that has been designed to keep you comfortable and keep you spending money.
In order to truly experience the places you travel, you need to find a sense of place. Learn about the history and culture of your destination. Eat where the locals eat. Talk to those you encounter in bars, restaurants, and while shopping. Be introspective about what life in that area must be like for those who live there.
Tourists only get the most surface level experiences available, because it’s what’s easy to see. Likewise, it’s often also only what certain groups want you to see — the tourism boards, businesses, and local governments. And while these experiences are often the most palatable, they rarely provide you with true knowledge of where you’re visiting.
Reading up on your destination in advance can help you develop a multilayered knowledge of what you will experience during your trip. This helps to frame your perspective in an entirely different way from the outset. Niche guidebooks, history books, local authors, and even the shared experiences and local connections of those in your social networks are all ideal places to start.
Make Your Own Memories, Don’t Copy Someone Else’s
Social media is great for inspiration when you’re planning your next trip, but it shouldn’t be your primary decision-maker. The drive to capture your own version of that iconic shot is understandable, but you can get so focused on recreating that one photo that you lose sight of exactly what you’re experiencing. I’ve seen too many people that immediately leave a beautiful spot as soon as they snag their photo. Off to the next one, they depart.
Traveling shouldn’t become a to-do list for the sake of your feed. It’s about the experience and the landscape into which you’ve immersed yourself. Follow where your eyes and interests take you, not where your Instagram feed tells you to go. Sometimes it’s okay to put your phone/camera away and just experience that place you’re in. Focus on the sights, the smells, the sounds. Ask yourself how it makes you feel. Sometimes the best moments of a trip will come from just sitting quietly in a place and absorbing everything you can.
I always snap photos or videos when I’m traveling, but I’ve found that taking a travel journal along to capture my thoughts and experiences as they happen is the best way to truly remember a trip. It helps my brain to process what I’m experiencing in real time, and with that comes a much more vivid recollection after I’ve returned home. After all, that’s truly the whole point of traveling.
Schedule Unscheduled Time
Traveling to a new and exciting place can be overwhelming when you have a mile-long list of things to see, places to visit, and food to eat. The sense of urgency to maximize your trip is entirely understandable, but sometimes you can get so caught up in seeing and doing everything that you really miss out on an opportunity to find your sense of place.
Tourists are primarily concerned with seeing everything they’re “supposed to” see at a given place. In order to accomplish that, tourists have agendas with every attraction and the time to spend there spelled out. Visiting somewhere new almost becomes a chore when the entire trip is scheduled down to the minute.
Instead, travelers schedule some things — a boat tour, dinner reservations at a popular spot, accommodations when they expect to change cities — while still leaving plenty of open space on their travel itineraries for whatever they find along the way. Never once have I been on a trip where I didn’t get absorbed into a place I was visiting and end up staying there a lot longer than expected.
During a solo road trip around the South Island of New Zealand a few years back, I found an amazing camping spot on the shore of Lake Pukaki. I was so infatuated with the setting and the views that I decided to stay parked there an entire extra day just to enjoy the sunshine and relax after 6 days of long drives. Having that time in my schedule to unwind and soak in my setting really helped me to appreciate how lucky I was to be sitting there, next to an electrically bright turquoise lake, in New Zealand.
Be Nimble
Tourists bring multiple outfit options for each day of their trip. Tourists need more luggage than they can carry in two hands. Tourists overpack. Having too much stuff can make it difficult to adjust to changing circumstances, and it makes changing locations an entire ordeal unto itself.
Travelers pack efficiently, and they only bring what they’ll need. One or two bags is all travelers need for any trip. Travelers are intentional about packing clothes that serve multiple purposes. Packing light means you can dodge and weave your way through crowded streets, avoid paying to check bags for a flight, and fit into just about any size vehicle on the ground.
Whenever possible, I try to only take one bag with me. My all-around favorite is the Peak Design 45L Travel Backpack, which can usually fit everything I need with room to spare. Yet it still fits perfectly in the overhead bin on a plane or in my lap in a snug Lyft ride.
I could go on and on about packing light, but Taylor Welden already knocked it out of the park with his great article on Carryology about the benefits of one-bag travel. In fact, I loved it so much that one sentence from the article was the inspiration for this entire post. I highly recommend you check it out.
Expect Nothing, Appreciate Everything
Nothing screams “Tourist!” more than someone acting entitled and unappreciative of their interactions with everyone around them. Tourists feel that the people who make up the places they visit should be there to cater to their personal needs. Tourists know a place they’re visiting because they read a guide book or have seen it on television. No one else should be visiting popular destinations. The local people should speak the Tourist’s language. The local customs should be the same as those of the Tourist’s home.
To be a proper traveler, don’t expect anything from the people you meet. Treat every interaction as a courtesy extended to you from the other person. After all, while you’re there on vacation the other person is likely at work or going about their normal life. You’re not owed anything from these people just because you’re visiting their city or country. It’s true that certain locations and businesses depend heavily on the travel industry, but it’s not an excuse for a lack of humility and gratitude from you.
Traveling is an opportunity to learn about an entirely new place and an entirely new group of people. In order to maximize this opportunity, it’s imperative that you come into every situation with an open mind and a closed mouth. Embrace the experiences that present themselves to you, and take every chance you can get to listen to what the people there have to say.
Alright, Wrap It Up
Without a doubt, traveling has been the part of my life that has brought me the best experiences and the most knowledge. In my ongoing work to maximize my life, it’s been important to me to be as effective as possible at traveling. Taking these intentional steps to act as a traveler instead of a tourist helps me to ensure I achieve that goal with every trip.
Do you have any strategies for being a traveler instead of a tourist? Share them in the comments below.