Been reading Jack Kerouac? Envisioning dusty roads and foreign airports? Dreaming of jumbles of taxis and unheard languages spoken aloud?
You, my friend, have been bitten by the travel bug. It usually strikes at the end of a particularly gruesome school year, after dozens of term papers on post-modernism and endless gossip sessions at the corner of Union and University.
If you can scrape up the nerve, and the funds, travelling abroad can be a rewarding experience. After travelling solo through Asia, Europe and South America, here are the very valuable lessons I wish I had known before stepping on a plane.
1) Your travel plans are not real “plans.” Travel itineraries and schedules are a joke—as you compose them, there are thousands of unintended factors conspiring to keep you from making it to the Louvre at exactly 11 a.m. on May 12. Keeping an easygoing outlook when it comes to sticking to schedule will not only mean that you have already wisely accepted reality, it will make you a better travelling companion. The pleasure of travel is in grasping the unknown. Rushing through a vacation on an itinerary is a great way to see nothing and understand even less.
2) Choose your travel buddy, or buddies, wisely. Yeah, it seemed like a good idea in February to buy a ticket to Venice with your boyfriend, but then you broke up. You could rip that ticket in half, or you could swallow hard and step up. The best person to travel with in the world is yourself. The one misconception that I seem to constantly brush up against is the idea that going on a vacation alone is somehow punishment. Travelling alone is an empowering experience that forces you to be totally self-reliant and completely open. Choosing a travel partner with conflicting goals is as useful as packing stones in your backpack.
3) Pack money. And then pack some more money. And then pack some things you can pawn. Here’s an earth-shattering announcement: travelling costs a fortune. My personal low point was paying the equivalent of seven dollars Canadian in Milan for a can of Coke. When on vacation, you will be seized by desires you never even knew you had. Sand surfing in the Sahara becomes an irrepressible desire, and the gear doesn’t come cheap. The Peruvian pan flute that previously sounded like someone scraping their nails down a board? It’s the perfect gift for your 8-year-old cousin. Trust me, there’s nothing worse than pinching pennies on a trip, so you don’t need to to spend a fortune, don’t go with a scrimping budget or you’ll find yourself doomed.
4) Wear a Canadian flag, and don’t expect everyone to speak English. We Anglophone Canadians are spoiled because mass-produced consumer culture panders to our language. Seeing posters of Britney on a Darjeeling street can mislead the innocent traveller into assuming that just because the vendor can sing “Toxic,” he also understands English. Guess what? Probably not. So carry a guidebook that provides loose and inaccurate translations of phrases similar to what you are trying to say so that you can at least amuse the locals. Frankly, it’s hysterical. Wearing your flag and bumbling your way around in a “shucks, I’m trying” way should win you some friends. Or, of course, you could wear the flag of another nearby English-speaking country commonly associated with Canada abroad. That tactic is probably less effective, though.
5) Use a journal and forget the camera. I know it seems important to capture each moment on film. That way you can relive every single teensy-weensy smidgen of an event later. Obsession with your camera is unhealthy. Freezing a complete non-event on film will not make you Indiana Jones, and unsuspecting bystanders who you spring your “travel art” upon will only be sympathetic for so long. Spare your post-travel pals. Instead, develop the powers of your own poetic tongue by writing. Nothing chases away a good moment like a camera in the face, as reality television attests. And while on the topic of the hyper-technical, please don’t write generic mass emails with cheesy statements about local culture peppered in.
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