As someone who grew up in the global South, this reads to me like a person from a privileged background trying to relate to the everyday people in other places and the marginalized- but it comes off sounding like a lot of projectionand assumptions- it would read much better if the conclusions were accompanied with dialogue from people, maybe explanations of where those statements are coming from.
>I don’t travel like most people do
I would think most travel is done by a wealthy few, but most travelers aren't wealthy- if that makes sense? It sounds like the "travel" being referred to here is "flying somewhere and being a tourist" but in fact to many people "travel" means taking the train/bus to another city, staying in a hostel, wandering around. Most people who go to see a wonder of the world do it because this might be the one time in their life they can afford to visit NYC, a place many people dream of seeing, and so they want to experience those things that are iconic there. I guess it really stands out to me, this writing sounds like "I'm not like those other stereotypical tourists" and the stereotypes are those behaviors associated with privileged westerners- which isn't really an accurate representation of most travelers.
From the Istanbul post:
>Most Turks are not secular though, and neither are they religious nuts like them Arabs
He considers education by traveling as sufficient, which I believe is not the best approach. Might be a good idea to read up a little about the history and cultures of a region before going.
There is a lot going on with his writing that comes off ethnocentric, uninformed, insensitive. I'm not going to dissect it, but I'll just say I recommend familiarization with cultural geography, anthropology, and ethnography if the topic of understanding people in different places interests you- because this blog is rife with problematic bias and some really broad generalizations that are prejudice at best, racism at worst.
Wow, the criticism of his "Faces of Affiction" work is spot on.
From his Istanbul post:
>Because being an addict here is an ugly and gross rebellion against a town that feels like a single massive mosque. A place that is welcoming, humble, peaceful, and sublimely beautiful. It is like pissing on an alter. A gross, ugly, and rebellious act that will bring scorn and shame. Both in the physical and spiritual world.
US cities by comparison have all the ethos of an office park. Drab, soulless, and endlessly competitive, where selfishness is rewarded. Being an addict there is like pissing on the drab shrub at the edge of a massive parking lot. It doesn’t feel that wrong. It even feels a little right. Especially if your a tad depressed. A tad isolated. A tad lonely. And many people are."
There is an issue here with this attempt at documenting people but without taking the time to learn and understand how to do it respectfully, ethically, and with consideration to the people he's observing. I want to believe his motivation comes from a good place, that he wants to bring attention to people's lives... but the way his writing reads sounds more like the fetishization of the marginalized and elitism over exceptionalism. It sounds like "yes I'm privileged but unlike those other privileged people I talk to the poors", because rather than centering the voices of the people he claims to "inhabit their tiny slice of the world"(while claiming his goal is "to better understand how they see the universe and their place in it") he dishes out his value judgements. The hubris that all you need to get an idea of how people live is to... show up. He does write that he sees traveling as fiction with the plot written in real time- evidently with him as the MC. He seems to want to change for the better though, and I hope he learns to invest a little more time into figuring out how to look at people's lives more respectfully than as entertainment.
"rather than centering the voices of the people he claims to "inhabit their tiny slice of the world"
I wrote a book center the voices of marginalized people I spent up to 10 years with during my time documenting addiction in the US. It's called Dignity. I don't expect you to read it, but perhaps if you did, your criticisms would be different.
This project, walking around the world and sending dispatches, is different. While I talk to plenty of people during my trips, its a more macro based approach.
While I appreciate your takes, I will say your making some pretty huge assumptions based on one article. Such is life!
I grew up in between Ypsilanti & Detroit, and I've lived around/in a number of borderline-impoverished communities. It's not my place to make generalizations, but you should be aware that your tourism is not always welcome. Many, if not most of these people, are not proud of their situation. They might smile and take your money as you photograph them, but your motivations are not mutual.
When I was a kid, my decently wealthy grandparents visited on my birthday and offered me $100 if I'd cut my "garish, girly" hair down to a more typical length. Self-righteous allegories aside, I still feel that choice burned into my head like a brand. They let me choose between living as I am, a resented shame in a family too poor to buy cans of Coke or Pokemon cards, or take $100 to humiliate myself for a few short moments. In the end I rejected them, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't dream about yo-yos and Bakugan that night.
Nowadays I thankfully live in a different economic strata, and I even sympathize with your curiosity to explore different cultures and lifestyles. You should stay fully aware of your optics at all times, though. Sometimes, the greatest charity is treating other individuals with the same respect you give your peers.
Again. There is nothing in this I disagree with. But there is a lot of assumptions on what I have wrote over my last 12 years based on not reading what I wrote.
If you read Dignity, and come to the same conclusion. Fine. But this thread is based on a Wiki page.
Congrats on Living in a different Eco strata. That is well done! (no snark intended. Genuine congrats)
I'm not here to throw stones at you or tell you that you're wrong. You can't expect your entire bibliography to be required-reading in an HN thread though (or anywhere else, for that matter). Take my concerns with the levity of someone who has no idea what your work entails, since that's pretty much all it is.
As someone completely independent of the author with a long history on HN (the latter of which you can check) I just want to chime in to say that Arnade’s book is incredible and one of the most affecting books I’ve read in years.
It is in fact one of the most thoughtful and nuanced reads on what it means to be marginalized in the United States, and shines a light on voices and communities that are almost completely ignored, or fetishized, by mainstream media.
He’s being graceful, because anything else would sound silly or like self promotion without that context. But your criticism really is misplaced.
If you care about these issues you should definitely dig in a little and read his book, it’s worth it.
> They might smile and take your money as you photograph them, but your motivations are not mutual.
In my experience. Dealing with tourists like this generates mostly bemusement. They come into your life, spice it up for a little while, and then they disappear again. You don’t expect anything different.
I don’t think most people consider that they’ll be written about on some random travel blog later, nor that it will be in any way relevant to them.
> too poor to buy cans of Coke or Pokemon cards
It’s so weird to read this and then consider that some people do/did see this as the standard of being ‘not poor’. I’d have never considered myself poor, but every time I read stuff like this I wonder if others would have considered my family so.
I'm being pretty pessimistic here, I admit. At the same time though, documenting this stuff is a fragile task. I mostly oppose to the monetary incentive side of it, which creates unfair power dynamics between photographer who used to be a day trader for two decades and someone less-fortunate. Maybe other people are less sensitive to that, it's just my two cents.
> It’s so weird to read this and then consider that some people do/did see this as the standard of being ‘not poor’.
It's all relative. Both of my parents were working full-time and also addicts, which made the money pretty tight. There were definitely weeks where we lived paycheck-to-paycheck. Again though, none of this is to throw a personal pity party. My larger disagreement comes down to his methods.
It might be possible that what you're doing is both noble and controversial. That may be inescapable from what you're trying to do.
There's a certain burden that comes with being from the areas you've covered, which based on my limited reading of your Substack (today) I think you understand. Being a Florida boy might help too. Rust Belt came out some time ago, it was after I got out of the military I believe. I remember not being a fan, mainly because I felt like it would fuel stereotypes about "back row" Americans. I think I was wrong at the time assuming your work would be fuel for that; much of America is already predispositioned to disliking the Midwest and South for a variety of reasons. It probably didn't help I was living in a trailer at the time and at a low point of my life; in that way, I think it was a reminder of what the mirror looks like (though I was not a Trump voter, Rust Belt covered a lot of culture too).
In some way, I think because there's a burden for the people who live and escape those experiences there is also a burden for you in telling that story. We are stuck in a state where front, and maybe middle row, people often just do not have a point of reference for McDonalds being a local watering hole (as an example). I see it in online discourse, I hear it in the areas I've lived in with my job, and I feel it in the runs of politics. I still thank my lucky stars I was able to leave, but I had better opportunities and luck than most.
All that to say, I'll buy Dignity. You at least dared to tell the stories of people whom the most powerful parts of the United States call "flyover".
I’m curious if you have actually been anywhere in Turkey and lived there. I have and for me his perspective is extremely accurate from my experience. I’ve cumulatively lived over 1 year of my life, living as a local, not a tourist, and there are many issues in Turkey, but mental health and drug abuse is simply culturally handled very differently and the US is an embarrassment in comparison.
> I would think most travel is done by a wealthy few, but most travelers aren't wealthy- if that makes sense? It sounds like the "travel" being referred to here is "flying somewhere and being a tourist" but in fact to many people "travel" means taking the train/bus to another city, staying in a hostel, wandering around. Most people who go to see a wonder of the world do it because this might be the one time in their life they can afford to visit NYC
I think you are ignoring middle class mass tourism. Between the privileged few who stay at chain hotels and the people going for once-in-a-lifetime experiences, there are many people who travel as tourists once every year or two.
Growing up in Finland in the 80s, I got used to an environment where most families could afford traveling around Europe. If there was a nice destination a travel agency could charter flights to without fighting the regulators for years, it was quickly filled with cheap hotels and restaurants catering to middle class tourists. Getting there was usually 1/3 of the costs, the hotel was another 1/3, and the money you spent on other expenses was the final 1/3.
Today flying is even cheaper. Regardless of whether you are from a nearby town or from another country thousands of kilometers away, the costs of staying at the destination are likely to dominate.
It seems he didn't do much travelling (from his blog?). Many people on HN would have done more. It also seems that he wrote off an entire continent (Africa) which is the cheapest to travel, has the most to experience and probably is the best adventure out there for travelers.
He has biases and he is travelling to confirm his biases; not to change them or let new ideas in. He is using a bit of a rough language to attract readers and collect up-votes.
Paradoxically, traveling Africa can be very expensive, because many parts are so poor and unvisited that there is no demand (and hence no supply) for reasonable transport, hotels, etc. The locals just don't travel long distance, and if they do, it's squashed into a clapped-out truck going to the market with a flock of goats, and it's two weeks until the next one.
The cheapest places to travel are middle-income places like Thailand and Vietnam, where there is plenty of local demand but wages have not risen to Western levels yet.
>Paradoxically, traveling Africa can be very expensive, because many parts are so poor and unvisited that there is no demand (and hence no supply) for reasonable transport, hotels, etc.
You just use "unreasonable transport, hotels", which is fine if you're the kind of "traveller" the author claims to be. Due to cost of living differences, they are still much cheaper than Thailand and Vietnam.
It's only "very expensive" if you go for luxury in those places (and even then, due to cost of living, it's cheaper than comparable luxury elsewhere, except if you go to some place that only caters to the elite). For exampke, if there's no transport in a country in Africa, you can usually just hire a guy to serve as a driver for several days - and it's often less than what you pay for a simple train ride betweem countries in Europe.
My firm has conducted over 50 projects in rural Africa last year, and the cost of living and transportation is most certainly inversely proportional to how developed the area is.
The local options simply aren't available to outsiders.
I understand if you are looking for a minimum of comfort but I thought the main point of the article is to go the "rough" way. You can always bring a car from Europe (cheap) and drive starting from the North and getting into the Ivory Coast and neighboring countries.
Lots of people (Westerners) are doing it every year. They have groups and connect with one another. You won't be alone.
Seems like people are criticizing this partially because it's pitched as an alternative to normal tourism. Just wanted to point out that Chris Arnade has done quite compelling photo journalism based on his way of engaging with communities, so what might seem like non sequitors or edge lord stuff might be in service of an implicit goal of his that most travelers don't share. Not that he does himself any favors with some of the framing.
Is this the guy who covered Hunts Point in the Bronx? I remember seeing his pictures, feels like a long time ago now.
I found a Flickr album here [0]. I also vaguely recall a long form article, talking about a few different people's lives, but I can't seem to find that one.
I wrote the article. So you can yell at me here. Thanks again for all the interesting comments. Hacker news is the best. One of the few places I read the comments and learn.
Hey Chris - I wanted to drop a note here to thank you for what you've done for me personally. I found you first on Twitter I don't know how long ago and your posts there really brought home to me the point about how we were all talking past each other and don't engage in real conversations with people who might have different viewpoints from our own.
When my kids were younger we went on a camping trip every summer in a state park. There was this one group of people that we would hang out with each year (I called it "redneck corner") who were easily the most friendly and welcoming people in the entire campground. They would feed you, watch your kids, hand you a beer when you came by and we would just sit by the campfire and shoot the shit until the wee hours of the morning. They had nothing in common with me and my world and I loved it. I still remember their stories today.
Reading this post of yours today reminded me of those times, your writings (I loved Dignity), and the need for me to get out of my private office in my house and actually meet people who are different from me again. Until I figure out how to do that, I want to thank you for everything that you do to help me better understand the world a little bit better.
>When I decided to go to Vietnam, everything and everyone told me to go to Ho Chi Minh City. It had better food. More art. More high culture. Less government. So I went to Hanoi.
>The US equivalent is to go to Indianapolis instead of NYC or Houston instead of LA.
This is a really odd thing to say when Hanoi is the second largest city in Vietnam (larger than LA) and a huge tourist destination in itself. It's more akin to choosing LA instead of NYC.
I thought that was a very weird comment as well and your comment about it being like choosing between NYC and LA is spot on.
I am also surprised there's no mention of train travel. I found this the best way to get to know a country and its people. When you're stuck on a train for hours you end up talking to your fellow passengers.
India was great for this as everyone was chatty and spoke decent English. Vietnam was a bit more of a challenge on the language front but you still got to have some interesting conversations in basic English with some help by showing pictures.
I did not go very far off the beaten path in Vietnam but I really enjoyed the vibe and night life in Huế.
This is not 2000 or 2010 any more. On a train virtually everyone has a smartphone, tablet or laptop, very few are “stuck” there for hours having nothing entertaining to do other than striking up a conversation with a stranger. At least in wealthier countries and on more comfortable trains.
And then there are people like me who always disliked chatty strangers, even back in 2000.
Hanoi feels more novel to Americans than Ho Chi Minh, which feels like a fairly generic city. At least that's how I felt visiting the two.
Another thing you have to remember is that there are a lot of southern Vietnamese in the US, who brought their food with them. The average American has experienced more of south Vietnam than north without ever having visited.
Seeing the difference between a city that I perceived to be kind of emulating western culture (Ho Chi Minh), versus Hanoi, which has a culturally distinct feel about it, can reasonably lead a person to see a touristy city as a more cultural experience.
From an ameri-centric point of view, HCM is inundated with a kind of unpleasant or generic tourism (eat at these places, eat on a boat, go to this market, go to this tower, go to these museums, go to these "palaces," climb into vietnamese tunnels) compared to Hanoi where a lot of the tourism is related to both food and how beautiful the country is. It's kind of the difference between "this food is objectively good" and "this food is new and interesting."
Ive been to both and I definitely considered Hanoi more (locally) cultured. Also the comparison to Indianapolis doesn't make sense a smaller east coast US city like Washington DC or Boston makes more sense as it's a cultural and ideological center of the country.
Hey, Chris - I think one of the difficulties I had with your article(and with other writing like it), having lived outside the US and trying to travel like this occasionally then, is that we don't really get to live as the locals live. I spent most of my time in one specific corner of the world, and I see a difference of thought process in people who are tourists, people who travel, and people who live in another culture. I think you're in the second category, which is not bad, but I think that there is a real sense of particular place missing from your writing, while there is a distinct mindset missing from my place (the third category) that lead to both intrinsically lacking the full appreciation of the other. When we travel, we live like some facsimile of local life if we stay in an AirBnB and go to local places, but we still are relatively rich, white (?male?) people with the option to leave the place when we want to, and don't get a good, deep sense of the culture. It's hard to be a real regular somewhere, for example, when it's clear that you are a rich visitor who will be coming regularly for a while, spending a good amount of money, and then leaving. From your writing, for example, I felt like you misunderstood the compliment that Jamal, the Turkish restaurant owner, gave you when he complimented the economic status that has allowed you to gain weight. I lived somewhere in a decent amount of privilege while working for several years, and it was only after regular, constant, and questioning exposure to the culture that I began to understand it past the surface. I don't see how your wide travel to many different cultures lets you get a deep understanding of any specific one.
Put another way, (which can seem attacking, not my intent, I just can't think of a way to say this better in a short comment) the tourist has an experience an inch wide and an inch deep, the traveler has an experience a mile wide and a foot deep, and the person who goes to live in a third country for a term that includes the word years has an experience a foot wide and a mile deep. We just should all recognize what our experiences are.
Solid writing, rolling is the way for clothes, one backpack where at all possible(mine was larger than yours, but still so much easier to just carryon when going to visit somewhere), and I greatly enjoyed my visits to place I described as 'Wichita, $COUNTRY', just not as much as living somewhere for years.
Even foreigners living in a country among the locals people often miss a lot. That shouldn't be surprising, we miss a ton of stuff even in our own country while speaking the same language. Have you ever heard someone from your country tell foreigners about what people in your country are like, and thought "what are they talking about"?
There's just so much variation, it's hard to really say. I've known people who lived in a country for years, don't speak the language, and live in their small expat circle. I've known typical tourist types who found themselves living among the locals because they ended up on a local tour. Or people that don't live in a country, but have studied the language and consumed the local media to an extent that they have a better understanding of a lot of cultural trends than people who lived or visited the place.
In the end, it's probably best to let go of the idea that any one person is going to see the "true" place, or that one city is more "authentic" than another. Everyone, even the locals, are just going to know some piece of a much larger whole. I'm not sure how useful it is to argue about which piece is better than the others.
You are absolutely correct that authenticity is hard to find, and that foreigners do not truly experience the culture as the locals. I hope I didn’t give that impression in my post. And my intention is not to argue, but rather to point out that someone transiting through a place in just a few years does not know that place deeply. The method of life that Chris describes has value, and is good. It’s just not the complete picture (nor am I saying that anyone has a complete picture)
You seem to object to doing touristy stuff, but you neglect the fact that locals also do touristy stuff[1]. I agree going to resort towns is silly, but anyone with a keen eye will learn a lot about local culture just walking around and observing in any neighborhood.
My favorite observation, Chinese apartments with dedicated areas to hang dry clothing outside, the drying area is fenced off, in some places I saw, using decorative columns, with line/bar put up to hang clothing on. Apartments have a large window that opens to the fenced off area, and a stick with a hook on the end is used to put clothing out on hangers. There is still some privacy of what is being hung up, and it looks much neater, and presumably it keeps birds and such away.
Wonderful bit of home design.
Another bit that stuck with me, I was staying at an AirBNB in downtown Mexico City, when I went out in the morning I saw store owners mopping down the fronts of their stores to get rid of the dust and grime. I've never seen stores in the US care enough to bother.
[1] If you come to the Pacific Northwest and don't hike a mountain or go out on a lake, why the heck did you come and visit in the first place? And as a third gen Seattle resident, I've done plenty of shopping at Pike Place Market.
Unfortunately people are only seeing the bad in this article. I do similar things with my family but not so extreme. I've really found that restaurants/food are the keys to understanding the local culture. I will never forget in Pureto Rico we found a back street lechonera, when we were getting food I asked the woman behind us what was good to eat. She helped us then we sta with her for lunch. My family ended up spending almost 2 hours talking to her over lunch and got deep in to PR politics and such. An amazing experience.
What I've found helps the most is asking questions. Any time you can ask someone a question they open up and you end up making connections and learning so much. Usually it's simple stuff like sitting at a full bar and asking the person next to you how the sandwich is, or what is on their pizza. Next thing you know you're making a friend and you're actually having real conversations with locals.
Speaking as a NW European: talking to random people and asking them random questions is like the perfect way to stand out as a foreigner, probably American :-)
Eat in silence and leave others to their own, that's the key to the local culture here. Especially in situations like public transport, people like their silence on their commute.
Someone who shudders at the thought having to answer "what's a good place to eat around here" before scuttling away into the shadows, wounded, isn't going to give good social advice.
But if you want cultures where it's particularly easy to talk to strangers much like in southern USA, latin america is always good.
Aside, there's nothing wrong with standing out as someone with enough social grace to connect with others around you. Being too scared to talk to someone because nobody is talking is a self-limiting belief. Be someone. Leave an impression. As Matthew McConaughey says, stick in people's minds like wet dogshit. Be the guy so brave that he can risk it all by asking "what's a good place to eat around here" to a stranger.
I would suggest Costa Rica. I went there and kept to myself, partly not wanting to seem the Ugly American and partly because my Spanish is sh8t. More often than not somebody would approach me in an offputtingly-friendly way, I would be kind of afraid, and it would turn out in the end they were just super friendly.
I look at it as kind of the inverse. Anywhere that isn’t too developed usually has people that are curious and friendly with time on their hands. Its modern urbanized areas where people too busy or distrustful to talk.
Wow. So many comments. I wish I could respond to all, but life.
Thanks again and always enjoy when a post of mine makes it to Hacker news. I appreciate the feedback, and actually listen to it, and when wrong, try to adjust.
I generally would agree that touristy city centers tend to feel similar to each other, be polished and therefore boring. However, your example of Hanoi couldn't be more hilariously misguided. Your characterisation of touristy areas ("places of quaint storefronts mobbed with American retirees, hip bars filled with plastered 25 year old Brits, and a few monuments with millions of Instagram posts.
Despite being in very different cities, they all feel the same. You have your five star hotels. Your restaurants that everyone says you have to go to. Your buildings plastered with historic plaques") is completely off the mark. The old town of Hanoi is precisely where locals go in the evenings for a cheap beer on the streets - it doesn't get more typically Vietnamese than that. And the old town of Hanoi definitely does not feel the same as anywhere else, even just within South East Asia, Hanoi is known as a very special place.
Don't get me wrong, exploring other areas of Hanoi is a wonderful experience as well.
I agree that there's a lot of value in traveling beyond the beaten tourist path, especially with the bit that this path tends to have a certain sameness to it, regardless of where you actually are. However I disagree with going out of your way to avoid it. Writing off entire cities because they're big or popular is needlessly contrarian. If you're seeking the lived experience of locals, why not go visit the NYC-equivalent of their country?
Also can't help but point out your characterization of Hanoi as the Indianapolis of Vietnam is ridiculous. Perhaps in comparative size, but Hanoi is the old capital of Northern Vietnam, and remains a fascinating vestige of what "old" Vietnam was like. No offense, but Indianapolis is Indianapolis.
I don't write off entire cities. I do make choices with limited time. As I write,
"That doesn’t mean entirely ignoring places like NYC, Istanbul, Seoul, or Tokyo. Some cities are so important they can’t be missed, and every city is a confederation of very different neighborhoods. NYC is as much Dyker Heights as it is Upper East Side.
That makes where you stay in a city more important than the city itself. "
I wasn't attempting to suggest Hanoi is the Indianapolis of Vietnam. I was Just using a stretched example to go to the less obvious place. Maybe I'm wrong, but the vibes I got here in my world is Hanoi is the less obvious place compared to Saigon.
Less obvious place would be Ninh Binh (my favorite place and experience from visiting Vietnam), not the first/second most famous place in Vietnam everyone knows (Hanoi/Saigon), or at least go for Danang, Hue, Hoi An, Nha Trang and all of these are on tourist trail anyway.
I like your style. Hanoi is a major tourist city, so I think you are really missing your stated goal because locals are familiar with tourists and the wants of tourists. Your desire for a cafe or bar says something? In my experience most cities in the world have a sameness that makes it easy to plug yourself in.
In my own country (New Zealand) when travelling I try to find places that are small (less than a few thousand population), perhaps without any accomodation (a sign of being a tourist destination). One great advantage of going to small towns overseas is that they are safe. Tourist cities are the most unsafe places I have travelled to (I particularly had unsafe situations in Rio and Nha Trang).
Perhaps apply your restaurant thinking, but just go a lot lot further down that path?
In many countries, I have felt like a millionaire, because the difference in income and situation is so profound. In Vietnam I remember talking with someone who’s monthly salary was USD50. I have met many people who had a disposable income of a few dollars a month. USD50 is less than my daily budget which is pure disposable money and is relatively obscene wealth (cost of flights alone exceeded USD50 per day: flights are expensive from New Zealand). I was just tooling around, like some sort of rich playboy, with no cares because I had been given everything by my country. I also remember how small many people were, because their food intake was limited by their means. I have very little capacity to relate, because I have never been in similar shoes (I do remember being astonished at the casual wealth of some Japanese and Americans when I was younger, but I haven’t lacked for anything in my life so it is entirely different).
I notice the same dynamic at home: my income as a software dev is radically different from many people I know. My disposable income is ridiculous: one acquaintance worked 40hours a week and was left with $20 to spend on themselves after expenses. I struggle to relate with a profit of 50 cents per hour.
Using google maps to spot out a non-touristy area was ingenious.
I live near the spot you showed in the example that you picked.
I would suggest next time trying out another method, not based on restaurants, but on using Historical Map: look at the city and go back 100 years, then look at the city in the present, and either choose a place that has not changed at all, or a place that was a slum and now is housing.
Thank you for writing 'Dignity.' I've read it, shared it, given it away.
You gave a tip during a panel in Chapel Hill about learning from others by switching where to get your morning coffee, e.g. from Starbucks to McDonalds, or more local places. I've added it to my list of tactics and am richer for it.
Saigon is also good choice for your travel. Don't be biased by people talking. I can see some parts of me in your post when I went to Saigon. (Fun fact: I'm Vietnamese living in Hanoi)
Next time if you have time, come and enjoy your education in Saigon.
I'm from Idaho, I feel like someone could drop me anywhere in the world and I'd probably do ok. Unless there's humidity j/k :-P
Kind of a random question, but what do you think about van life aka Instagram tourism?
We're seeing a lot of stacked rock piles, trash left at campsites, defaced natural formations, just people in general crowding into areas that used to be "secret". We have a sense that people visiting here don't share our values around leaving no trace. Is that happening everywhere? Is it a trend? Will it get better or worse? Etc etc.
In hindsight, this wasn't a great question. I don't associate vandalism with van life or Instagram tourism. A lot of people found time to travel during the pandemic, some for the first time, and the large numbers of tourists were probably the main cause of any damage. I just worry about the damage worsening if more people are able to be digital nomads but don't work at their own personal responsibility.
i have been traveling with a similar aim, to get to know people and learn about the day-to-day life. and i wish i would have had some of your ideas. like eating at the same restaurant frequently to get to know the people there. i used couchsurfing (and earlier equivalents) to find locals to stay with.
i agree with most of what you say. maybe not the part about picking the worst season. i'd mellow that one to "avoid tourist seasons". i want to go somewhere there there are not many other foreigners.
i also went one step further after i finished studying, and went to places to actually work there, for 6 months, or a year, or more. in one decade i lived in a dozen different countries. i always connected to local linux user groups and local chapters of other communities that i was part of. (if you practice some sport, then join the local sports club to continue practicing). i went to local tech events, even if they were in a language i didn't speak. just showing up regularly allowed me to make new friends.
one thing that was important to me is that i intentionally didn't reading anything about the places i went to. i want to experience a place without it being colored through the reports of other foreigners.
and in a manner i am still traveling. i have been back home to visit, but i haven't lived there for more than 20 years.
"and went to places to actually work there, for 6 months, or a year, or more" -- yeah if you have the ability to do that (job, family, etc) that is a great way to live IMO.
You mention the local linux groups. My brother, who does something similar to you, uses the local Ping Pong clubs. He is a top rated player, and its enough of a niche sport, but one that is everywhere, that its a great international community
I loved the article. It puts to words some patterns I have been developing in my mind throughout the years. I haven't got the experience to go that hardcore on localness yet, so my current algo is to seek destinations where the locals go to tourist. I find it a confortable middle ground between the shiny global touristy places and "contrarian ultra-local" places (if I can borrow a term tossed around here, not judging the article in any way).
OR make it only show on consecutive visits (not the first one), and make the "let me read this first" option a bit more obvious. I've been looking aimlessly for an obvious X or No and missed the option the first time around.
To the degree I have a difference of opinion, it is around the idealization of planning and packing light.
I believe the most excellent choices are best made on the ground and the expedition is a great way to explore.
The airport genericizes travel. It removes distance and vastness and remoteness.
Flying gives you an MP3 - and that may be good enough - but it is not the band playing live in someone’s living room.
Getting there puts the flyer among travelers very much similar dealing with very much the same things at the same time. Airport food, flight delays, seat pitch, luggage limitations, etc., etc.
Traveling light as virtue is heavy baggage exchanged for a 61 key synth and a worn tea kettle.
The most interesting and beautiful places in Vietnam are not in the large cities. It is the countryside and the places that foreigners almost never travel to.
The places where you don't see another white person for weeks on end (mostly in the North West of Hanoi... especially Ha Giang area).
The places that are really hard to travel in if you don't have a local who can speak the language. Why hard? Because just getting food or even a place to crash in a random tiny town late at night (because it took you too long to drive there), is a real struggle.
Hey Chris, just wanted to say I love Dignity, and enjoy listening to you on various podcasts. The Econtalk episode and the recent Lamp Magazine ones were great!
Your viewpoint on walking matches my own. I refuse cabs when traveling. However, public transit is usually fair game for me, because that seems part of the culture itself and should be experienced.
Have you ever visualized your GPS tracks(if available) of your walks around a city?
How do you not get the PB&J through airport security? You can bring any food. The ban on liquids is because liquid explosives can’t be frozen. So anyone bringing most okay liquids (e.g. soup) can just freeze it but people trying to bring something very flammable (e.g. ethanol) wouldn’t be able to.
Enjoyed the article! I saw your line about not really caring what you look like and wanted to add that throwing a collared shirt and light sweater into your bag will open many, many doors.
«I try to find non-traditional tourist destinations. Cities that are viewed as ugly, or without a lot to see. Cities where the residents are more focused on living their life, for themselves, not for a global audience.»
This resonates so much with an experience I have had once. My wife and I visited Japan for a couple weeks and we went to 4 cities: 3 big classic ones (Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima), and a small city that a relative used to live in: Beppu, which is not at all a tourist destination. In fact Beppu is so off the radar that one of the only guided tours available there to see local gardens and one monastery was by a guide who didn't even speak English. I didn't see a single restaurant menu in English. There was not much to do except randomly exploring neighborhoods and trying random shops, walking along canals, people-watching, bathing in the local hot springs (which were completely empty), etc. We were immersed in a tiny city with just people living their normal lives. And yet, Beppu was my most favorite experience in Japan. It felt like the real Japan.
The thing is, most people in most cities are living for themselves, not a global audience. Even a place like New York isn't all Broadway and haute couture, and there are a number of interesting neighborhoods that are generally overlooked by tourists.
I saw this recently with the issue of migrants in Martha's Vineyard, where people thought the entire island was populated by millionaires. There's a lot of wealthy people who go to these places for the summer, but the year-round population is much more complex. About 1/5 of the population are actually recent immigrants from Brazil[1], and if you look at the local school notices you'll see they're printed in English and Portuguese.
In an effort to get an "authentic" experience, it's possible to overlook the authentic experiences that are right in front of us.
Beppu is one of those places that lives off of domestic tourism. I wouldn't say it's the "real" Japan, but it is certainly in the realm of "traditional" japan.
Some of this advice is good, some of it is bizarre:
> I prefer to travel to a city the time of year its most uncomfortable. So like Montreal in the winter, or New Delhi in the summer. I want to see a place when it’s at the apogee of its essence, not when it’s the most comfortable. A kinda, if you are going to do X really do X thing. It’s also when it’s a lot cheaper.
No, sorry, if you visit New Delhi in May, Tokyo in August or Montreal in February, you're going to have a pretty miserable time.
If you visit Chicago in the winter, the absolute worst part of the year, you’ll miss what makes Chicago great.
The beautiful summers are so great it makes the winters tolerable.
For example I always take visitors on a river/lake boat tour. Even though I grew up here it always blows my mind mind. The problems is those are completely shut down in the winter.
If someone wanted to visit me in the winter and “act like a local” I don’t know what I would suggest, maybe stay indoors where it’s warm.
I think there's "off season" and there's "midwest in January" - you can aim to visit Chicago in the very early spring or late fall just as the boat tours begin or end.
As in all cases, careful research can reveal opportune times that you can balance with your other goals. If you want to see the cherry blossoms in Japan, you're stuck to a very particular time, for example; but I don't think they put away Mt Fiji until very late in winter.
I was in Chicago in mid-May a few years ago and took a boat tour. The weather was still very cold and windy and it ended up being pretty miserable!
I'd still recommend it. But it taught me to pack based on the weather forecast and historical weather. I make sure to bring a warm and dry enough outer layers that I can sit outside for an extended period.
And one of the best things you can do "as a local" is ... buying weather-appropriate clothes you forgot! Almost all cities have thrift stores or equivalent, too, which can be even more fun.
Mt Fuji is best seen in winter, when the air is clear and it can be seen from far away. If you actually want to climb it, you're limited to a brief season of a couple of months in midsummer.
This is precisely the comment I was going to make. If you want to come to Chocago in the "off season", you're more than welcome, but you'll just be as miserable and bored as the rest of us locals.
I was in Japan during the hottest part of the year pre-pandemic and it was delightful. The cicadas from anime are a real thing, not sure why that surprised me exactly but I loved the vibe. I experienced how an onsen visit can completely refresh me in any weather - so interesting how steeping in super hot water makes me feel better in super hot weather. I bought a neck towel with a fun waving cat print and shopkeepers watering plants always offered to water my neck towel. Always ice cold water. My hikes were made all the more satisfying under the intense heat. In the moment you're hot and sweaty, but afterwards you are washed and air conditioned and drinking ice cold beer and life is so much sweeter.
I'd probably be okay with that, but I don't like being uncomfortable. My girlfriend gets heat stroke when temperatures go over 25 degrees celsius, so that's a definite nope. Still want to visit Japan at some point though.
I find 25C fairly unpleasant and definitely "warm."
OSHA recommends offices to be cooled below that point, with 24C/76F being the upper end of acceptable. Some of this observation is also dependent on metabolic rate, which makes opinions on this somewhat gender-skewed.
Maybe for someone who is always used to A/C or central heating.
For someone who has experience with such weather and has adapted to it, it's not a big deal.
I wouldn't presume to tell other people how they should feel, but giving them a head's up that it may be miserable if they're not ready for it is wise.
Tokyo had a few days this last august with lethal wet bulb temperatures. I assume Delhi would be similar.
Winter in Montreal just needs the right clothing, but then you’re not packing light. A proper winter coat, gloves, boots, etc. will need way more space than exists in that tiny backpack.
I've spent a few weeks in Tokyo and Kyoto mid summer (though less extreme I guess than this summer) because of business trips and you can "manage"--in the sense that you can limit activities during the hottest parts of the day or just in general--but I don't really recommend picking visits at those times unless you have some specific reason to.
Montreal in winter on the other hand is fine. But, as you say, you need the right clothing which can be reasonably compact but isn't going to fit in tiny luggage. (And activities will be at least somewhat different from in summer.)
I'm a fairly compact traveler in general (just carry-on usually) and you can get off with a lot in temperate to warm climates in urban locations where you don't need to dress up. But I also don't like to pack only those things that I'm sure I need. For example, I have a little kit bag of miscellaneous stuff I mostly don't need but am sometimes glad I have.
> A proper winter coat, gloves, boots, etc. will need way more space than exists in that tiny backpack.
Depending on where you live it might be winter already there too so not necessarily a problem as you already wear the shit and remove what you don't need during the flight. Otherwise you just have to wear them when you enter the plane and put them back in the ikea bag that was in the coat's pocket the rest of the time.
"Winter" is different in different places, so it's very plausible that you won't have the winter clothing needed for your destination anyway, let alone be wearing it when you leave.
You can buy the right clothing in Montreal. Since the stores in Montreal sell to people in Montreal, the right clothing will be cheap and easy to find.
> the right clothing will be cheap and easy to find
Tell me you’ve never lived in a place with actual winter without telling me. The clothes aimed at locals are designed to be a 5 to 10 year investment. Not a jacket you buy to throw away in spring.
That said, you are right that unless you’re in a place like that, the correct gear isn’t even available for you to buy.
I'd tend to avoid buying used long underwear or wool socks.
The "cheap, serviceable, but used" is... fairly picked over by the locals (and especially the homeless).
Consider San Francisco for a moment and the daily occasion of tourists who suddenly find that the fog rolling in the evening is cold and then buy the "cheap" (but horribly marked up) jackets that aren't the right size in which they stand out like sore thumbs.
Or they could go to the Salvation Army store and buy a winter jacket - consider the availability of them there.
Or they could go to REI or Farm and Fleet (I know there aren't any F&F in SF) and buy a new winter jacket there.
After childhood, locals have winter clothes that often last 5-10 years or more (and they pay for durability). My winter jackets are from '10 (I've got a medium weight photographer's jacket that I got in Keeble & Shuchat in '01 that I still wear... wish I could find something like it again). My father's winter jackets are in the 10-20 year range.
I'm also going to note the plural. Locals will often have two or three "winter" jackets depending on the weather.
The only time you get a jacket for a season that is cheap is for a child who is going to outgrow it by the next winter.
You can get pretty far with a thick wool base layer, packable down jacket, and a wool hat/mittens/socks. Maybe not ultralight one bag travel, but with some reasonable clothing choices - not terrible.
Of course I don't live in a country that has actual winter, that's the point.
If I buy winter clothes in my home country, the clothes will be ugly, expensive, and I have no way to make sure if they even work for their intended purpose. It's too hot here.
But when I go to countries that have actual winters, especially First World countries, then I can find decent winter clothes even in, say, a Target.
> The clothes aimed at locals are designed to be a 5 to 10 year investment
Taking a quick look at Target's winter coat selection for men... the coats that are appropriate for December - February in Chicago are still in the $150+ range price there. There are some in the $100 that wouldn't be awful for going a block... maybe two... but I wouldn't want to be wearing them if there was a substantial wind, snow, or if I found that I needed to turn around and go back to the bus stop and wait for the next bus.
When I went to Minneapolis in winter a few years ago I brought lots of winter clothes. I ended up replacing most of it with cheap clothes from Target, except the coat and the boots.
Well you aren't fully packed unless you also pack an income source to refill the card, travelling (at least for a lot of "true" travellers) is about finding a sustainable means of "going infinite" (to borrow MTG terminology).
Sure. Enjoy walking up to the stores in -20C (or -5F) in your light clothes from home (and before someone goes "but actually I'm gonna rent a car" suuure you think that will solve all your problems. sure)
I didn't plan it, but I did this once in Bergen, Norway. Showed up and immediately got soaked by the rain (I think I had a pathetic little umbrella). Noticed that most people outside seemed okay with the rain and had nice rain jackets. Found a store, bought a nice rain jacket. It comes in handy now when my kid wants to play in the rain and I don't want to be miserable afterwards.
This depends on the person. Looking at this past febuary it had a min of -4F.
We had similar in AR back in 21 and I was outside in a tshirt or if more than 10 minutes the thinnest windbreaker ever. (Single layer of plastic and compresses to a baseball size or so.) I might go to a hoody at -20 but not sure even then.
I guess it depends on your sensibilities. Tokyo in the summer matches where I live in the summer, so it's no real change. Also I'd say weather is all part of the experience. Places like Sapporo or Sendai are great to visit in the winter, because you get a real winter experience. Something we don't get in my country.
Most countries have more than 4 season in practical terms though, and going during the "seasons inbetween" is my recommendation. In Australia, the indigenous have up to 6 different seasons they identified depending on the location/tribe, and they have more nuanced events expected for each season. Most countries are like that in real terms, so intimate knowledge can get you a great budget off-season holiday experience.
And in the US and much of Europe, school and general vacation schedules play a role as well. September and October tend to be really good times to visit a lot of places that are packed in July and August--and the weather is often even better. Get into the winter and it's at least a different experience out of doors and may not even be really doable for the casual visitor (though of course cities are always visitable to some degree).
Exactly, that’s generally my tact on my digital nomad adventures… try to avoid peak season, but don’t go in the middle of winter/summer in a seasonal area
I think it actually makes sense, but perhaps more so for “traditional” tourism. I lived in Amsterdam for 20 or so years. I found winter to be positively miserable: cold, rainy and dark. But it is the best time of year to see tourist highlights like the Anne Frank House, Rijksmuseum etc. Not as much waiting and crowding. The old town in general felt less like an open air museum. Not sure if this still holds true, it’s been over a decade since I moved away.
The thing is even locals will have a greater time during the nicer times. Using Montreal, where I was living until a few years ago, is a much nicer place to wander around when there's no snow. It's a colourful city, lively and full of small and big activity to do, so you can get by with the sort of tourism you described in high season (summer), but also end of spring and early fall.
In the winter, it's a cold, wet and relatively low interaction time of the year. I assume some place have a high, low and dead season for tourism, and I personally aim for low, but to each their own. Quebec in general is a great place for winter vacation, just have to go outside Montreal island.
The author's behavior is, to some extent, an attempt at anti-conformity by traveling in a way that he believes most people don't do (i.e. by staying close to locals, staying longer than a few days, avoiding popular places to experience authenticity). I think most people would in theory like to travel that way. Places that feel authentic draw people and become popular, which eventually makes those places feel less "authentic". That's the paradox. If everyone traveled and behaved like the author, then, in time, there would be less "authentic" places to discover.
This is kind of like the Heisenberg principle for travel. You can’t visit the place without having some effect on it. Though I think authenticity is a bit fetishized anyway. Some of the world’s most interesting places are fusions of multiple cultures. Like wishing for the “authentic” Mexico City before the Spanish.
There’s a really good subreddit for this called r/onebag. You can get by with surprisingly little clothing by utilizing wool t-shirts, socks and underwear, plus semi-stylish nylon shorts and pants (I’ve personally had good luck with Unbound merino, Western Rise, and Outlier).
Pure wool is more fragile than cotton, but pretty comfortable these days, resists odor, dries quickly, and is easy to sink-wash.
Shoes are the one thing I have yet to crack — hard to find ones that dress up and down well.
I spent most of 2019 in SE asia, and full-service laundry was just too good, universal, and cheap to pass up. About a euro/kg everywhere. Never any problems.
Sink washing and dealing with damp clothing was a time suck I always ended up regretting.
- Astral Loyaks, which are minimalist boating shoes. Fine for casual style, and can work out in them
- Chuck Taylor's, again casual but super flexible style. Again, you can work out in them
- Good leather town boots. Can walk anywhere in them and they dress up excellently.
For the rest of my clothing, I tend to wear things Lululemon's collared shirts and long pants, which are technical fabric but look downright dressy.
They’re not for serious hiking but I’m a fan of Clark’s Desert Boots re: up and down.
Look great with jeans (even shorts, IMO) and work with a suit. I recommend you getting the Bushacre version, as the effectively turn any moisture on the ground into ice. Cheaper, too.
I did this in my mid-20's and it was indeed a great way to travel. Ended up going to 50 countries before I turned 30. Lots of CouchSurfing along the way, although that community/site has degraded. Had an Osprey Escapist 20L backpack which was more than enough to fit a weeks worth of living into, I'd do laundry and buy new t-shirts/underwear along the way. After years of traveling I think I ended up being every type of cliché traveler eventually. Doing the math it was about $15,000 CAD / year. It was actually a very interesting way to live and it gave me a lot of confidence to be able to survive in most places on very little. Even the most expensive cities in the world you can usually find a way to live cheap, if you are willing to compromise and find a way to be ok with being uncomfortable.
Before I left I sold my car for $9k and all my stuff for maybe $6k. And I think I had $9k in savings before, so I started with about $24k which lasted me almost 2 years. But I did work odd job Craigslist stuff along the way occasionally. And near the end I got in debt a bit. But it was worth it I think. Now with the way remote work is I could travel indefinitely, but at that time I had less skills in programming and I really didn't wanna work in general.
Are you collecting "local" trophies? The quaint lives of indigenous grandmas and blue collar workers? Are they the "real" ones whose wisdom you absorb? Do they stop being real when they enter a chain restuarant?
Some locals (as if they're museum artifacts!) don't live cheaply; or have learned your language; or are overeducated; or buy in bulk; or like to travel too (can a local travel?); Are they not authentic? Not able to teach you something? You've heard from them already, I guess.
These guides to travel "like a local" always sound patronising and demeaning.
It's almost short of saying travel "like a poor" and reminds me of rich middle class coming to deprived parts of town to have pint with the locals to hear how they struggle and at the same time feel better about themselves.
That's the real issue I have with this article. I think it's possible to have a considered approach to an off the beaten path style of travel, but writing a "holier than thou" article about it doesn't seem like it tho.
I have one advice for you - don't use Airbnb, small guesthouses are way cheaper than any Airbnb in SEA and busy areas have often lot of competition pushing prices much lower than done deserted areas, you have no clue about cheap travel.
And if you want really local experience then stay at CS hosts or find whatever you can like when I argued about price in one Thai island with owner and they suggested for price I propose I can sleep somewhere in floor, which I said it's fine with me, couple from bus station heard us and I ended up sleeping on mattress in their bus station office.
Also Hanoi is less touristy and more local than HCMC? You what? Who is this noob? I enjoyed motorbiking around Ninh Binh a lot, Hanoi is like top 1 or 2 most touristy place in Vietnam, heck even Hue or Danang are less touristy than Hanoi.
Many people here blame airbnb for rising house prices in my city. Every block seemed to have multiple houses dedicated to airbnb. And the visitors certainly are problematic at best.
Some of my best experiences were off the beaten path. Having said that I kinda question this idea how local or representative of local life those experiences were. I also would not what to have missed out on the big attractions either... I can't imagine skipping the Louvre, not seeing David...
For an article by someone who travels a lot there's a tone here like that friend who comes back from some trip to tell you how much more amazing X place is and all the wonderful things they do better. Things that are different often make big impressions. I'm always skeptical of these ideas, how many people you meet, what that really represents and so on.
Otherwise I probably agree with most things in the article, granted somewhat aspirationally (I wish I could pack that light) ;)
Travelling is like real estate, location matters. Certain places are popular for a reason usually. Off-the beaten path travelling is like advocating people to move to an off-grid farm with no running water. It might work out fine for you, but most people are not into that thing.
Whenever I see "travel light" advice now I just think of Vagrant Holiday[1].
Of course, once you've seen how The Vagrant travels it makes the rest of us look like pretentious bourgeois pretenders no matter how regimented our carry on bags are. :P
He doesn't shower as far as I can tell. He mentions once (paraphrasing) "I'm lucky I don't sweat much and smell". He practices basic hygiene and appearance (shaving, etc) and washes his clothes in public laundromats, as shown in a couple of his videos. I guess a quick washcloth in a public bathroom can get to where it matters most, and having clean clothes helps a lot. But he also doesn't ever eat out in restaurants, visit crowded indoor spaces, mingle indoors, etc - places where it would matter most and people would notice or comment.
Yeah I love the idea of trainhopping but seeing The Vagrant's trainhopping video pretty much robbed any residual romance from it for me.
It's a dirty, dangerous and cold way to travel. A bit like the guy that packed himself up in a crate to get back home; not something I'd ever really want to experience myself.
I saw a talk once by a guy on how he spent his late teens/early twenties train-hopping around North America. The main point he wanted the audience to take away was Don't Do It - it's dangerous (stories of a few dead or disabled friends), uncomfortable, can have serious legal consequences, and (most importantly to him) the more rich tourists do it, the harder it gets for the desperate teenage runaways like himself, and others with zero resources, who are using it to survive.
> In many cases, he slept on the plane, and never even got a hotel room.
Doesn't sound like such a great life. Anything short of a bed is pretty awful to sleep, let alone planes; even less once-a-day long-haul flights that would allow any acceptable amount of sleep.
I'd guess "never even got a hotel room" is an exaggeration.
> I'd guess "never even got a hotel room" is an exaggeration.
No, it isn't. It wasn't that frequent, but he (and others) did, from time to time. I traveled with him, many times, and can attest to a lot of it (I'm a wuss. I'll always get a hotel room, and insist on a night of rest).
It was the life he chose. I suspect that he leveraged the extreme. It did get him a Corporate VP seat, after all (and the fact that he's one of the smartest bastards I'd ever met). I don't know if the office would have been much less stress. Japanese work culture is pretty intense.
I didn't ask, but he had a lot of travel percs, so he probably used the airport lounge facilities. They can have the full Monty, in some of these lounges.
I am surprised he didn't mention once asking the locals. That is my key to knowing how people live in different countries. Also you get tons of inside information and it is an easy step to connect to people. Often times you get 'adopted'. You find yourself as a special guest on a private family garden party. Or on parties in locations that only the 'cool people' know it is open because Corona regulations mixed things up.
I am currently recording hundreds of videos to share all knowledge on YT.
Nice read, but for all the "I want to travel like a local", I find it funny that he refers to the large city in the south of Vietnam as "Ho Chi Minh City" when virtually all locals call it its traditional name "Saigon".
I've never travelled before (other than the usual British holidays to france and spain, in which you make an immediate detour to the first red lion you see and kind of just sit around that for a week), but have recently been feeling like I should at least try it. The problem is, I have no idea where to start, where to go or what to do. I don't really have any opinions on where I'd want to go because its never been something I've considered doing.
Ideally, it'd be really nice to find a group of people who also want to go travelling and who are also more into it that I can join along with. Not like a tour guide, I'm not a huge fan of strict activites and basically just want to go foreign pubs, but a few people who I can socialise with and who know what they're doing, that'd be great, but so far Google hasn't turned up a lot.
Anyone have any advice for somone like me? For some reason I know the more granular advice like "travel light", but don't really have a clue about the much broader stuff like "go to x"
If you're looking to meet a group of people to go to foreign pubs with, especially (but not strictly) if you happen to be in your 20s and 30s, just stay in social hostels.
You can occasionally find sites that highlight the most social "party" hostels in each town, or you can get a feel for it based on if their pictures feature extensive communal areas, an on-premises bar, pool tables, etc.
Basically go to any destination that seems appealing, stay at one of those hostels in the dorms, and you'll make friends quickly.
It's not all about just getting trashed together, oftentimes the people around you will tip you off to what's worth seeing and doing in the area, and will even want to join you or have you join their group and go do these things together.
It can be a lot of fun, not to mention typically the cheapest option for housing while traveling.
Edit: More to the point of "go to x" - I'd highly recommend Southeast Asia as a great entry point to travel. It's beautiful, very different from Europe/North America so it really feels like you're traveling, it's got the gorgeous tropical beaches, rainforests, beautiful architecture, unique street food scene, etc that all feel very foreign to anyone who's lived in the West for most of their lives, it's overwhelmingly safe, probably the cheapest place in the world to travel ($3-$10/night for a hostel, $1-2 for a meal from a street vendor), and it's a very popular destination with plenty of hostels and fellow travelers to meet at those hostels and befriend.
In terms of a couple specific destinations to start out with, take a look at Thailand, especially Koh Phangan and Koh Phi Phi, and Bali (Canggu and Ubud areas).
The trick, I find, is to start small and see what you like doing.
My advice would be - go to Rotterdam. Take the Eurostar there, pick literally any hotel.
Open up Google maps, find some bars. Pick a couple of museums or parks. Built a rough itinerary for, say, a long weekend. If there's a Pride event on, that's fun. If not, just go wandering.
Everyone there speaks decent English. Food and beer is great. Good culture. Adequate weather. If you're gregarious, chat to people in bars, clubs, concerts. If not, look at Greeters - https://internationalgreeter.org/
Depending on the country this can ring very true when it comes to food in my experience. i.e where popular = worse.
The most extreme experience I had was for a brief stay in Thailand, where the main tourist streets are filled with ridiculously glamorous looking and very busy restaurants serving the blandest meals (by anyone's opinion) with the most watered down and expensive drinks I've ever had. I don't think anyone could ever eat at one more than once.
But within only a couple streets distance you can find amazing street food for a fraction of the price and eat like a king, which is exactly what all the locals were eating. Some westerners might be a little worried about hygiene but they cook it right in front of you and honestly I think the tourist restaurants were a complete facade and are probably have far less hygienic kitchens hidden away... Since then, in foreign lands, I'm more wary of places filled with tourists and few locals.
I always thought that the only real way to live like a local would be to get a job that takes up most of your time, rent the cheapest apartment you can find, and go to the same places every day. On weekends, catch up on errands. Everything else is just some flavor of tourism. To be honest, I prefer tourism!
Ha, this is what I've done, it's called "moving there". Lived in many countries around the world - you want to learn what it's like to be local, you gotta live there, and for a long while. Even then you're still an outsider. The truth is, we're all always outsiders in the lives of people we don't know, no matter where we are or live.
IMO this misses out on how to create deep connections with people.
What I often do is meet people through Grindr and try to get a short term romance. The relationships that ensure are quite profound and it creates a very special connection with the place. Maybe through the eyes of the person that you've met.
There's a correspondent named Paul Salopek walking around the world and writing/shooting it for National Geographic. He started in Africa and he is currently in Asia, headed northeast. His final destination is Tierra del Fuego. I follow him on Twitter and it's very interesting seeing the pictures (mostly in rural areas) and understanding how he does it (he has locals walking with him on each leg). He's gone through many sets of hiking boots.
> When I decided to go to Vietnam, everything and everyone told me to go to Ho Chi Minh City. It had better food. More art. More high culture. Less government. So I went to Hanoi.
I'm not sure why the author acts like those are the only 2 options. I spent a year living in Ho Chi Minh city and the vast majority of the city of is not aimed at international people but at the 9 million Vietnamese speakers living there (districts 1, 2 and 7 being the exceptions).
That being said, both HCM and Hanoi are subcultures of their own and don't give any impression of a 'typical' Vietnamese person's experience. If I were to look for a completely ordinary city, I'd pick a random city with a population of around 500,000 and nothing notable on Wikipedia.
Indeed. HCMC and Hanoi are huge metropolis. There is a huge migrant worker population because that's where the jobs are.
If you want an "non-touristy" experience, go to mid-sized cities like Can Tho or Ben Tre in the Mekong Delta. They have lots of tourists, but they tend to be local. Everyone else there is just living their life.
Or go to some small rural town. Not much to do, but you'll get a glimpse of how a large part of the population lives.
Walking around is great, but I think it's a good idea to generally be aware of "unsafe" parts of town. If you think about your own local city, you would know areas to avoid, but, hey, if that's your thing, then go for it.
The part about visas is purely from an American perspective. I always find it weird when people write assuming everyone reading will be American. It's extra surprising when the person is a supposed travel guru.
It's not that strange. They are writing a paid newsletter oriented towards Americans, which is why it has that "Live, laugh, love" tinge to it. Besides, you could say an endless number of troubled audiences might read the article. Handicapped folks, parents with needy and noisy children, depressed/repressed engineers who don't leave their house, and thousands of other profiles for whom travel is but a distant dream. You just have to write and not worry about all that. Heck, the people who can't travel might enjoy the escapism.
> "You can almost always change cash with no commission and at a better exchange rate than credit cards charge"
Can you? This doesn't seem to be the case except in countries where the real exchange rate has drifted from a government-imposed one. The spread on my credit card and ATM card are low enough (very negative, in fact, on the credit card when we consider cashback) where if this were the case I would be able to arbitrage against said jewelry stores.
But that's literally not the case. There are ATM cards that reimburse you for fees and also give you great exchange rates.
Again, this is assuming that there isn't some sort of black market for exchange that's causing published rates to diverge from real rates, but that's only the case in relatively few countries.
>But almost every country has, if you look for them, places with zero commission.
Oh man this is hilarious. Places with zero commission end up charging the absolute worst exchange rates. You're better off paying a small commission/fee and getting a good exchange rate instead of those zero commission places that don't charge a fee and fleece you with a crappy exchange rate.
Did you been in Myanmar or Laos, for example? Did you exchange money in Cambodia? Rural Vietnam? Armenia or Georgia, maybe? Serbia or BiH?
I've been in all these countries (many times in some of them) and always, always exchange of cash was much better than exchange rate and ATM commissions for any bank of my native country.
Maybe, USA banks are better, but not everybody live in USA and has USA credit card.
I've been to most of those countries, and they're no exception to the rule that the best exchange rates will be provided by the credit card networks. Though, Cambodia is strange--at least to someone from the US--since the USD is still such a strong, preferred, unofficial currency in many places there. You pull USD from a Cambodian ATM in USD and there will be no conversion fee whatsoever.
If your credit card doesn't carry high fees for the service, the network currency conversion is the way to go.
> If your credit card doesn't carry high fees for the service,
Here is the key. My bank takes 2.5% commission on any transaction not-in-card-currency (in addition to about 0.75-1% commission of MasterCard/Visa system itself) and something like 0.5% for cash withdrawal in any ATM of any other bank, no matter in which country or currency.
And, oh, wait, if it is true credit card (non debit one) I don't have grace period for cash-like transactions and need to pay card interest from first day (for "buy" transactions I need to pay interest only if I don't resupply credit card after month end + 20 days).
And it is typical conditions in my country. Some banks has conditions slightly better, but they have other problems.
When typical spread for cash exchange in South-East Asia is about 3% (+1.5% / -1.5%) to FOREX, which is much better.
Typically: you could exchange $1 to 24000 VND now (oh my, I remember when it was 16000), but if I withdraw VND from my debit card (which is in USD, not my native currency) it will be something like 22000 VND per USD.
Other example: I'm in Armenia now, and I exchange USD to AMD on the street as 1:406 (406 DAM for 1 USD) without any commission (xe.com shows 1:401 right now). When I BUY something (not withdraw money!) with my USD card it is about 395-390 AMD per USD.
I have Visa card with Euro (I know, strange combination) issued by Serbian bank.
I'm in Armenia right now, and street rate for Euro is 390-394 DAM per Euro (no commission).
My last transaction with this card is 5300 AMD / (13.65 + 0.14) Euro = 386.86... (Don't ask why this bank shows one transaction as two, it is something like sum at block correction at charge?). I can not withdraw cash in ATM in Armenia from this card at all, transactions are simply cancelled, so I can not say, which rate it is for ATM. But in Serbia I've payed 0.5% for cash withdrawal.
The best option for me as a Canadian who has travelled to some (not all) of the places you listed, is to do the exchange in your home country and bring plenty of cash with you. If you're going to Vietnam, you bring VND with you that you acquired from your home bank. Going to Morocco, bring MAD with you.
Good to be Canadian, I suppose.
Never see any such currencies in my local exchanges.
Maybe, there are some banks where you could ORDER such currency as VND or MMK, but I'm afraid, rate will be disastrous as it will be very special order.
I’m honestly confused. The ATM doesn’t choose the exchange rate, your bank does. I use my own bank’s ATM card to pull out cash in foreign countries and it’s always the correct exchange rate, and always the same as using a credit card (which OP says is a good rate?).
Most people agree the best rates are obtained if the transaction is done in local currency with the network providing the conversion. However, some ATMs and credit card terminals give the option to either send the transaction to the network in local currency, or the cardholders currency. If you choose to let the terminal submit in your currency, you're going to get that conversion rate instead.
I don't understand the advice here either. It's not hard (at least as someone in the US) to find a card offering no foreign transaction fees, and I thought everyone agreed that the card network conversion rates are about the best you're going to find as traveller.
ATM fees can sometimes be unavoidable, but sometimes even finding a functional ATM was a blessing, so ...
it's been decades, but my experience was that places with commission would only be better if you change large sums of money, which, being a student on a budget, i never did. and if the commission is a percentage, then how is that different from a bad exchange rate? it's simply a matter of math.
i remember annoying my hosts once because i insisted on checking 3 or 4 places to compare rates and make sure i didn't get ripped off.
Yeah I’ve checked my credit card and ATM transactions against google’s exchange rates and they almost always are extremely close matches. Local banks seem to basically just provide the same rates with the extra annoyance that you have to carry around a ton of cash.
Yes, you can.
I've been in Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar (not to mention Thailand) and I always has much better exchange rate for USD cash, than my credit and/or debit card.
Yes, I'm not from USA, and we don't have any cards with real cash-back. Typically exchange rate for all banks in my country is like xe.com + 3-5%. It is terrible.
Only one time I seen really monstrous exchange rate for cash: in Istanbul airport. It was complete rip-off. Exchange booths in Istnabul itself were better than my bank exchange rate.
And typical spread in exchange booth in Myanmar is 0.1%. Yes, 0.1%. Like, 1000/1001 per dollar if you have $100 bills (worse for $50 and lower).
> Yes, I'm not from USA, and we don't have any cards with real cash-back. Typically exchange rate for all banks in my country is like xe.com + 3-5%. It is terrible.
Ahh, now I understand where the disagreement is coming from. For US cards, it's not cash-back rewards which make them a good value for foreign exchange. It's that the networks (eg, VISA, or Mastercard) offer currency conversion rates which are much closer to par than local retail services. (or, your bank, apparently.)
This article has a few good example charts for the networks:
Typically there is a 1% fee for the service. However, many premium cards will waive this fee as a privilege. If you have access to a card like this, it's a no-brainer.
Our banks adds their commission over Visa/MC one. Always. And additional commission for "foreign" ATM, typical. Even if your Visa is in USD / MC is in Euro and not native currency.
I don't know how is it work, but I see such transactions in bank's online service as "Transaction Amount: xxx.yy AMD, In account currency: zzz.qq USD" and when you divide one by the other you get something like 5-7% difference with FOREX exchange rate (of course, not to you side!).
If your card is in native currency, it is even worse, as there is double-conversion via system currency (USD in case of Visa, EUR in case of MC).
I don't know, why our banks have their own exchange rates and not Visa/MC rates and how Visa/MC allows this.
> As I see it, it probably really is good for the soul to be a tourist, even if it’s only once in a while. Not good for the soul in a refreshing or enlivening way, though, but rather in a grim, steely-eyed, let’s-look-honestly-at-the-facts-and-find-some-way-to-deal-with-them way.
>
> My personal experience has not been that traveling around the country is broadening or relaxing, or that radical changes in place and context have a salutary effect, but rather that intranational tourism is radically constricting, and humbling in the hardest wayhostile to my fantasy of being a real individual, of living somehow outside and above it all.
> To be a mass tourist, for me, is to become a pure late-date American: alien, ignorant, greedy for something you cannot ever have, disappointed in a way you can never admit. It is to spoil, by way of sheer ontology, the very unspoiledness you are there to experience. It is to impose yourself on places that in all noneconomic ways would be better, realer, without you. It is, in lines and gridlock and transaction after transaction, to confront a dimension of yourself that is as inescapable as it is painful:
>
> As a tourist, you become economically significant but existentially loathsome, an insect on a dead thing.
Meh, it seems like his negative worldview was colored by his own mental state.
Personally I think tourism is fine, it’s a fun break from normal life, and it can broaden your views sometimes. It’s neither “existentially loathsome” nor does it make you somehow superior to the people that can’t afford it.
Thank you for the DFW quotes. He's always amazing. A great, incredibly captivating piece of his on tourism for anyone interested is "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" about a week he spent on a fancy cruise ship.
While I understand the mixed responses to this post, and I started writing a lengthy comment with my own point of view, I realized that all said and done, this is just what the author wants.
It is commendable that the author is going to these lengths to experience what they are after. I'm not sure it has to be quite this extreme: for instance, you don't have to deliberately visit in the worst possible weather to experience the place authentically, especially since you're already going off the beaten path to places where most tourists aren't going to visit anyway.
The only problem with this sort of travel is that you're not really getting to live as a local, no matter what sort of condition your subject yourself to. Real life has bureaucracy, waiting in line for boring stuff, sometimes concerning stuff. It has limitations that stem from what you make, while visiting significantly smaller economies you are disproportionately wealthy and you don't really share the locals' means for survival.
No matter what you do, you are still a spectator, and while you're learning about different cultures and lifestyles, it's okay to have some fun.
His photos are great. The article does come across a little full of itself, but I think it's overall a solid idea. Personally, I allocate very little time to traveling these days so I'm forced to squeeze in the big wins: i.e. if I go to Tanzania I'm going to go see the wildebeest on the Serengeti. That's just how it is.
But I have to say, looking back, the most fun moments were less curated. And one example that I remember is walking through Gent with a friend of mine, feeling hungry, and stopping at one of those kebab stores. My friend and I had traveled to Turkey at some earlier time so when we asked the guy running the store (who was quite obviously Turkish) if he knew where I could get some fistikli kadayif (the wrong i but my keyboard is US) we ended up having a really fun conversation with someone who hadn't been to the country of his birth in a decade and really just enjoyed talking about it.
Personally, I'm a huge fan of these human connections. I really wish I could mind-meld with people and just absorb and share everything I've seen and they've seen and experienced. We can't, so this is what we get.
But besides that, when I as young I wrote copy for a bunch of these sites/magazines freelance and the 'research' was incredibly shallow. So what you're going to get is some teenager's online echo of some other teenager's online echo. Then everyone is convinced that only Giovanni's Shrimp Truck is the place to go. So if you just go next door to the other shrimp truck without the line, you'll get 99% experience with 1% trouble.
Following the herd has its value in that shared experiences themselves are of value but there's fun to be had in not that, too.
* Pack immodium for food sickness, this style of travel guarantees it. Add some ORS packets to your bag too (don't just trust gatorade or whatever)
* The new iPhone SE blends in remarkably well everywhere, it looks like a 7 year old phone.
* I feel much better in foreign hotels than AirBNBs. They generally adhere to some form of security backed by a legal standard, as far as door locks, and having guards on the property goes. AirBnB is great in trust-based societies, which travelers on the beaten path are not visiting.
* As cheap as possible for flights isn't the wisest choice, especially after covid where a lot of low cost carriers have cut corners on maintenance (see google news for spicejet over the past few months for more)
pro-tip: Traveling light/backpacking is far simpler in a fasted state.
Now whenever I go on a multi-day trip I'll deliberately pack on a few extra pounds before departing while in keto mode. From there it's a painless transition to simply not eating, and after 48hrs it feels like a potentially infinite modus operandi. No need for pooping in random foreign places and less demand for bathing daily, no need to carry bulky/heavy food... These problems are effectively reduced to just drinking water and finding places to pee.
Eating is a top five reason for me to travel, maybe top three.
I know, not everyone's like me, that's fine. "Just don't eat, it'll make your vacation easier" is nonetheless one of the stranger life hacks I've seen proposed.
> I think you're saying this with a straight face?
I'm definitely saying it with a straight face, but I also ceased abusing food as entertainment and a primary source of short-term happiness over a decade ago.
Except what I'm referring to is traveling, as in, actually in-transit.
If you're boarding a plane to spend just one night somewhere, then yes I suppose I'm suggesting just fast the entire trip. That's not a form of travel I engage in. Obviously while visiting a foreign place for months I'm not suggesting you abstain from eating the entire time - it's impractical and missing the cultural experience.
What I am saying is when you're hoofing it days with a backpack, or boarding a 52-hr train ride, or bikepacking a couple days, it's substantially more pleasant in a fasted state. No bulky food to carry and you won't have a dirty bum/as much want for a bath.
For example I'll be riding the Zephyr from IL to CA (~2.3 days) at the end of the month, followed by a 60-mile bike ride from the Sacramento Valley train station, east up into the Sierra Nevada. I'll eat a few whole chickens in the days leading up to the train ride, and won't eat again until arriving at my destination in the Sierra Nevada. The train ride won't require #2 bathroom breaks fasted, and the bike ride will be 100% adipose-fueled, light, and way more fun in that state. Of course I'll be eating meals with friends in CA over the following months though.
> If you model enjoying the fuel that we require to live as abuse, well, you must have reasons for that. I decline.
Nothing wrong with appreciating food. It's when one can't refrain from eating something rewarding for a few days without a substantial deleterious effect on mood/happiness for lack of the frequent short-term dopamine hits that it becomes an abusive relationship resembling drug addiction.
I genuinely never understood the people that travel to live like locals, avoiding tourist spots, popular attractions, etc.
Popular things are popular for a reason, I just can't fathom missing out on them on purpose, with the sole reason being that they are popular.
If I pay thousands for flights and hotels, it's definitely to see what's unique about the place, and after having lived in 4 very different countries (and my girlfriend in 10+), I can tell you that the locals' way of life is definitely not unique anywhere in the world.
Meh, it really depends. Some places look amazing on cameras and especially on drones, but aren't that interesting if you're not a bird.
Specifically, "un-popular tourists" generally don't like to hang out with hundreds of other tourists, pay exorbitant fees and being hassled by street sellers anywhere they go.
> the locals' way of life is definitely not unique anywhere in the world
This reads like satire. You can't tell me that life in Vietnam is anywhere near life in the US. I don't need to visit any tourist places in Vietnam to enjoy living there.
when i was a student i thought that every place i went to was different until i visited japan and realized that before that i had only visited western countries. (europe, US, NZ) and compared to asia they suddenly felt pretty much all the same.
there are still differences however, and i don't agree that the local's way of life is the same everywhere.
Locals way of life is no different in South India vs. the US? I get your point I guess, but there are huge differences in way of life that are genuinely interesting to me at least.
No, it really isn't that different. I think you can see differences in standard of living, not way of life or day to day life.
Wake up, go to work, go for a drink with colleagues or friends and go back home (and everything in between) is the day to day routine of the vast majority of people, no matter which country they are in and which standard of living they have.
It's not because some do it in a megalopolis with skyscrapers and some in a wooden shack in the middle of the mountains that the way of life is different.
Yes, we all breathe, eat and die. Day to day things are different. Interactions are different. Food is different. The time you spend between work and sleep is different.
Saying that "the way of life" is the same between South of India and the US is completely laughable.
Of course it will seem the same if you gloss over all the details that make life different! Those activities are shaped by the culture of those countries and are not the same.
“Going to a bar” in the US and Korea are completely different experiences because the culture is different. Same deal as “going to a cafe”.
And of course it’s a different experience doing those in a megalopolis versus a tiny village.
the differences are in the details. the culture. how people interact with each other. what they do in their free time. the difference in the standard of living itself reveals a lot in what people feel is important to them. there is a lot we can learn, both from the similarities and from the differences.
No family, but it's not hard with tech companies and unlimited pto. In the post covid world and wfh my gf and I work on trips I wouldn't have been able to do before too
im not working currently but at my last job of 5 years I took between 6-8 weeks of pto a year. 2-3 week trips internationally. my gf works a little more then i do on trips her unlimited pto isnt as flexible.
> choice of accommodations?
I have to make sure there is working space for 2 and good wifi and internet so I had to pay a little more on those trips and carefully read reviews and look at all the pictures. I'm not a work from a coffee shop person. I need quiet.
> impacts your itinerary
Not so much, though we don't really plan that much. While working you can stay a little longer. So it becomes do one thing in the afternoon, or in the morning. I like trying lots of new food and exploring cuisine so filling the day with work then eating is fine with me. I did the work-cation thing more on surf trips where I was surfing a lot, less tourist focused stuff. Did this in bali, kauai, puerto rico and europe
Travel is easy now. You don't need to ask locals, you can't get lost, and only a few remote places have anthropologic interest. The author travels for entertainment, it is certainly a time-consuming kind with slow reward's but as time goes by i wonder if travel will simply go out of fashion, as every place looks alike. We have google earth to explore even remote dangerous favelas, (accompanied by police). Tech is making travel a pure exercise in movement, without need or purpose
I mean, I think there is a difference between being somewhere and looking at pictures of it on google earth, akin to having sex versus watching porn, being in love versus reading about love, eating spicy food versus watching people do it on Hot Ones etc.
That was not my point, and there are gradations in those analogies. Cookie-cutter tourist vacations are not much different than watching the corresponding youtube travelogues, except for the smells, because they are so stereotypical. There is something interesting to traveling but i wonder how much value there is in it anymore. The author himself said that traveling is like fiction to him.
You can absolutely get lost if you are super reliant on your phone and it is inaccessible or you go somewhere with limited service and you didn't download offline maps.
> * When I decided to go to Vietnam, everything and everyone told me to go to Ho Chi Minh City. It had better food. More art. More high culture. Less government. So I went to Hanoi.
The US equivalent is to go to Indianapolis instead of NYC or Houston instead of LA.*
Uh huh. Indianapolis is a great idea for an international traveler. And while you are at it, go visit Indiana's state parks instead of Yosemite or Zion /s
The US equivalent is to go to LA instead of NY. Hanoi is the capital, the second largest city and very touristy. Picking Hanoi over HCM isn't off the beaten path at all.
If most tourists go to popular areas, the author is the extreme opposite.
I like somewhere in the middle. I seek out highly-rated restaurants among LOCALS as a starting point. The fewer other tourists I see and the less English the staff speaks, the better. I also mix in places I see on the street that look good - they may not even be on rating apps; sometimes I get lucky that way too.
I understand de-clickbaiting titles, but removing the actual title "How to travel" before the subtitle "On the cheap, like a local, and without a lot of luggage" makes this title incomprehensible to me. If the whole is too unwieldy, then why not drop the subtitle and keep the actual title?
I too, in general, avoid starting with "pre-packaged" experiences when traveling. My most memorable experiences were only possible because, like the author, I travel light and don't plan too far ahead and mostly avoid being spendy. There's a kind of looseness and spontaneity that is possible if one plans generally and keeps funds available to take advantage of opportunities that only crystalize once you get to where you are going.
But the high-handed tone in this article, denigrating the popular attractions countries are known of, feels entirely at odds with that philosophy.
> I stay away from the coolest neighborhoods in the world, which all end up being variations of the same thing.
If you have spent any time traveling, you know this is a silly thing to say. Even the most tourist-y places like Bali, though you see similarities, retain a national character. They are also generally very different from the rest of their host country - bubbles with their own rules and features. This is a feature! I have never regretted spending some time in heavily tourist'ed areas. Being catered to and seeing how culture shifts is interesting and fun. Taking a break from forging your own path and doing some pre-constructed-fun is nice. The reasons those areas are popular is because they are interesting and fun!
To me, a lot of this comes down to balancing the time you invest in figuring out how to spend your time and money v.s. the time you want to take "doing the thing." If you have a low budget, then just kind of scrap around (you don't have a choice so there's no need to pretend this is some crazy tip). If you have a higher budget you have options! You can jump right into a pre-planned experience for a little bit or you can scrap it a bit and see what turns out. Ultimately, for most of us, even if you travel on "the cheap" you are still actually planning around a budget of how long you can skip work.
I 1000% think that, if people have never taken just a carry on to a less touristy city in a foreign city, you should consider it. But the experience is a close cousin to the one you have when you are in tourist land and the two approaches support each other.
> If you have spent any time traveling, you know this is a silly thing to say.
I know from my own home city, Seattle, that this is bad advice.
If someone comes here and doesn't do any of the tourist things, hike up one of our many many mountains, go to the rain forest, spend a day out on Lake Washington, or stop by one of the many Sea Fair events, then they aren't actually doing the things that locals also do.
Because, surprise surprise, locals around here also go hiking and camping and go watch naked bicyclists.
Go to the "touristy" parts of Japan, and they are filled with Japanese residents doing fun things! Feeding the deer in Nara is something everyone loves to do, so don't be elitist, go do it! The fashion districts in Tokyo are amazing, go buy an outrageous new outfit! Anyone who spends half a second looking around will see that plenty of people who live there have done the same thing.
Likewise, the large museums in different countries are all worth visiting. The museum in the Forbidden City has dioramas made out of gem stones, they are one of the most memorable things I have ever seen!
I agree, staying at an Air BnB in a "safe but not cool" part of a city that is still on a transit line is a good idea. Eating at local restaurants is a good idea, but wow, the author is so self assured that his way of doing things is superior.
I agree that if someone goes to an all inclusive resort in Mexico, then they haven't visited Mexico. I encourage everyone I meet to go spend a week in Mexico City (CDMX is one of my favorite cities!!!), it completely destroyed any lingering bullshit stereotypes I had about Mexico. (Fun fact: Mexico City has the second largest metropolitan GDP of any city in North America)
Absolutely agree! I 100% think that, if you're not from somewhere and you've heard of a thing to do - there's a good chance that's because there's advertising money behind it and you're going to pay a premium to do it (museums are a frequent exception).
So, going into a trip, you will know about the "pricey" side of the cool stuff in that area. That's fine! Those things are still cool! But if you hang out a bit and look around at what the locals do, you will pretty quickly learn about the "cheap" side of the cool stuff in the area. You will also discover the day-to-day parts of being in a city or town that lead people to live in that area: small shops, hole-in-the-wall restaurants, street food, the bar scene, etc.
Not really. The author was super clear -- sentence 1, para 2 -- what his goals were: "I travel to get an idea of how other people live." And from that, everything follows.
I guess that's why I said called it strange. People live in tourist towns. The people there are real people with real lives (that involve a lot of interaction with foreigners). There's no reason to avoid those places if you want to "get an idea of how people live."
if i want to get an idea of how people live making money of tourists. (not that this is a bad thing) but i think that is the point, the life of people making money from tourists is similar everywhere. it's not the life that i am interested in learning about. i want to interact with people that don't make money from talking to me.
if i visit a tourist place, then i do it with local friends, and my interaction is focused on the local friends and not the rest.
you may say that not everyone living there makes money from tourists, and that would be true. but why should i make things hard for me, instead of going to a place where only very few people make money from tourists.
> the life of people making money from tourists is similar everywhere
I think, what I am getting at, is that this sentiment equally applies to every industry. You will find similarities if you compare any two tourist areas. You'll also find similarities between cities with healthy financial services sectors, or towns with small fishing industries, or towns where light (or heavy) industry is the main source of employment.
Tourism is just a way of making money, just like any other. It's normal and expected to get bored of tourist areas (because they are often the areas you go to most) - but the fact that you (or I) are bored of them does not make them worse than any other area.
If this article's pitch was "I got bored of tourist areas so here's how to travel in other places" I would be into it. Instead it is suggesting that tourist areas are somehow lesser than where people are living "real" lives, which is pretty off-putting and, as I said above, strongly clashes with my own travel experience.
fair point. i am not the author, and i can just talk about my own motivation.
what bothers me about tourist areas is that if i go there, i am the target that people want to make money off. just as i don't like advertising, this is a reason for me to avoid tourist areas or tourist seasons even if i have never experienced places like that before.
that doesn't mean that i'll avoid tourist places at any price. i'll still go there if the place is interesting enough, but the peddling i am subjected to always leaves a sour taste. so the problem for me is not getting bored by those places, but the difficulty of meeting people that are genuinely curious about me as a person, and don't just want to sell me something.
I used to avoid Pier 39 in san francisco because it was an overpriced tourist trap.
But recently I went there and had a lot of fun. I just relaxed and accepted the mini donut place and the left-handed store. And I genuinely enjoyed the USS Pampanito submarine and the Ripley's Believe it or not museum.
My parents used to have a simple approach to traveling on the Greek Islands. They would buy a Lonely Planet Greece guidebook, then go to the dock in Athens and look at the signs for the ferries. They would only go to an island that wasn't listed in the book. Worked like a charm for years and years.
My sister and her husband have been travelling throughout asia and south america this way for years. It's a great way to stretch the budget; they can get 4 months of travel out of what a typical tourist might spend in 1 or 2 months.
It wouldn't work for me, but I really respect that they're able to do it.
Traveling the world is awesome. At the same time I'm always surprised at how many things you can do right at your doorstep. At least for myself I can say I need to do a vacation at home because if you're always on the go, you never get a chance to see the beautiful spots right next to you.
I do a combo of these, with more time being a local if I have a lot of time, and little localing if I don't. There is often a new world in the common activities like going to the laundromat, getting groceries, plugging in your electric Alfa Romeo in the nearby favela.
If you need a travel guide for this type of tourism, you may find the “tourists vs locals” maps interesting and useful. Made by analyzing Flickr photos grouping them in ones likely taken by locals (blue) vs ones likely taken by tourists (red).
Those were fascinating when geotagging was just becoming a thing. All they show though is that a lot of tourist locations aren't where people live and work. (If you look at the SF example, relatively few locals are regularly taking pics on Alcatraz.)
It's not that visitors should avoid locales like the Mission (personally a lot of it is probably more interesting than Fisherman's Wharf) but it's not surprising that overall areas with a lot of housing or downtown businesses don't necessarily overlap with tourist attractions (though they probably do in SF more than some other places. Seattle may be a more obvious example although there are many that make a lot of sense.
Great literature -- not airport bestsellers, of course. How could a deep, intimate window into another part of our shared human condition _not_ change you? Mostly for the better.
I spent over a year traveling like this person. I agree with most of what he said.
My most treasured experiences were from being a regular somewhere. I think that is the most important lesson of the post. Friendship is proximity + time, so without spending a lot of time in one location you won't make friends.
Random aimless walking through non tourist areas is also an enriching activity.
I also found that traveling to places local people would visit to be far more interesting than the major tourist destinations.
If I had one uncommon piece of advice, it would be to invest in an extremely comfortable pair of shoes. After your phone, your shoes are by far your most important investment.
I personally prefer to travel with more stuff, although the author is absolutely right that you almost always travel with a lot more than you need. I like large cities more than the author, mostly because larger cities have more English speaking people so they are significantly less isolating. In larger cities it's nicer to have more clothing (and shoe) choices. I travel with a 55L osprey bag. I put all my electronics and papers in the day bag, and in the main bag I have clothes shoes and toiletries. If you know you are going to a single climate, you can pack less, but if you are going to both hot and cold places, you will want to pack more. The size of your pack mainly determines the rate of your laundromat trips and number of times you have to wait at baggage claim.
If you are an American tech worker, your credit card is almost certainly better than cash anywhere you can use it. I could also withdrawal cash from ATMs at the official forex exchange rate with my bank card. You do have to be very careful because all forms of payment will ask if you want to pay in local currency or your own currency. If you choose to pay in your own currency, you will be charged a predatory exchange rate, so you must always pay (or atm withdrawal) in the local currency. I left the US with $400USD and came back with $300USD after a full year of travel abroad, I gained a lot of peace of mind from traveling with cash I wouldn't be heartbroken to lose and electronics (chromebook) that I didn't particular care if they were stolen or destroyed.
After traveling without valuable items, I did feel mildly deprived. I would put a grand or two aside as "just the cost of traveling" money and use that as my "bad things happen sometimes" budget to get peace of mind about having valuable stuff in poor areas. If nothing bad happens, call it karma and donate it to a good cause.
The author talked about visas. The hardest problem for me was that countries wanted round trip tickets. They wanted a ticket showing you were going to leave the country. This can often be circumvented by buying a $10 bus ticket out of the country. That's the only way I found to reliably purchase one way tickets to various countries ad hoc.
> When I decided to go to Vietnam, everything and everyone told me to go to Ho Chi Minh City. It had better food. More art. More high culture. Less government. So I went to Hanoi.
I experienced this when I visited Vietnam as well. I thought Ho Chi Mihn felt kind of empty and not too different from other major cities. Hanoi was a wonderful city and felt much more lively. I liked Da Nang a fair amount as well.
A lot of the authors post can be summarized fairly succinctly:
If you want to grow as a person, you need to be uncomfortable. So don't optimize for comfort.
You can choose big comfortable cities with comfortable sights, comfortable food choices, and comfortable companions, but that won't lead to personal growth.
this was the only thing I could think while reading the article, if you're not /a white guy/ a lot of this advice is not useful at best or dangerous at worst
Huh? Being white puts a target on your back in a lot of areas of the world, because you'll be assumed to be a naive tourist with money, and possibly drunk. I'm positive a Filipino person can move around Hanoi more easily than a white person from the perspective of random harassment.
Yes, sometimes being white is a boon, and people will treat you nicer or more respectfully than they would a brown person. I'm not trying to say being white is a negative, I'm saying it is really dependent on where you are traveling to.
Like I go hiking. Wake up, go hiking, spend 8 hours away, go home, and then ... what do I do after that? I cannot sit still. So I end up being on my laptop.
the question is what is the purpose of the vacation. if it is to take a break from work, then maybe you want to find activities that help you take your mind of work but aren't boring.
you enjoy hiking. i do too. but when i get home i am either exhausted, or i write a diary. if i was alone all day i might seek out a place with other people.
One sentence in and the article is already waving its cringe flag proudly.
> I don’t travel like most people do
The author follows that up by saying they’d rather travel to a place like Indianapolis than NYC. In your words author, enjoy spending 4 weeks in Indianapolis living out of your book bag, not doing trips to other cities, sampling the local restaurants of Applebees and chilis, all while using the glorious public transit they have to offer.
I've learned to dismiss these articles entirely. They're all about optimizing something that shouldn't be optimized and doesn't work for most people. It just serves to make people feel bad about packing an extra suitcase, just in case.
Just go on a trip, and do what you want to do. You don't need a philosophy behind every little detail - I find this takes away. People care more to brag about how they travelled with just 1 bag than tell you about the places they actually went...
The author in fact did spend some time in Indianapolis[0]. I'm not really sure what your point is, besides that Indianapolis is a hinterland town with no public transit (the author was mainly on foot, anyway) and its height of cuisine being chain restaurants?
Well, one of the points of that link seemed to be that there are nice little ethnic restaurants even in strip malls in Indianapolis. I know that many smaller cities are perfectly nice places to live in--especially for those who don't want either a bustling metropolis or a rural location. But it doesn't mean I'll visit there for no particular reason especially without a car to get around easily.
You might find yourself surprised at how many of these smaller cities are good to visit for no particular reason! Indianapolis does have more than just little ethnic restaurants in strip malls. Of course, you may run out of things to see and do there sooner than you would in NYC, but who really has time to travel that much, anyway? ;-)
You have a point about needing a car in any number of such smaller cities in America, but even in those places there is a central core that remains relatively walkable.
>You have a point about needing a car in any number of such smaller cities in America, but even in those places there is a central core that remains relatively walkable.
They're often pretty small though. I'm not familiar with Indianapolis specifically, but there's one smaller city I visit semi-regularly for work. It has a nice (relatively gentrified) downtown but it's, to be generous, maybe 15 x 10 blocks. And beyond that you mostly need a car. I'll have a day to kill there in a month or so and I'll probably end up renting a car for the day.
I also worked downtown of a similar city about a decade ago. Same thing. (And both old mill towns.)
I honestly didn't realize it has that large a population. Although the city I was referring to in another comment with a small downtown core has half that metro population, so not a lot smaller. Cities can have large metro populations and still have a fairly small area that's what people consider a walkable downtown.
Gotta say I’ve met plenty of interesting people in NYC and plenty of dull people in Wilmington Delaware, so this doesn’t check out to me. Interesting people are interesting partially because they’re inspired
I've been traveling out of carryon luggage for almost 15 years, and I really disagree with a lot of the stuff in this post. I find many of the people who say "I'm traveling like a local not a tourist" to be at least slightly self-deceiving. You're a goddamned tourist, whether you go to restaurants with good reviews or not. The packing tips here are utter nonsense, as well as the suggestion that you get better exchange rates with cash than with credit cards.
> The packing tips here are utter nonsense, as well as the suggestion that you get better exchange rates with cash than with credit cards.
I was surprised on a recent trip to Europe that my (fee-free) credit card got me almost exactly the exchange rate I see on Google. Much better than ATM withdrawal with fees or any posted rate I saw in towns. Also all the internet advice about needing cash left me with lots of unspent euros and zlotys, I used apple pay almost everywhere (in fact my cash was refused in some places!) Maybe a covid-times switch away from cash, not sure.
I always want to have some cash but it really depends on the country and location how much.
I just got back from London and Dublin. I took my ziplocks of pounds and euros over and, aside from tossing some coins in the donation bucket at a London museum (and I think you could donate digitally) and using my Oyster card, I didn't spend a single coin or note. On the other hand, if I were doing an extended walk in the English countryside, I would absolutely want to have a couple hundred pounds with me.
I have a feeling my widespread traveling pre-COVID during which I pretty much figured I'd always have a use for most of my baggies of foreign currency is going to leave me with a fair bit of unused cash going forward.
The general rule is: the more affluent the country, the better off you're with paying with CC. The cost of exchanging paper money is proportional to the prices of other things in the country. Especially in big touristy cities in affluent countries like France, you can easily lose 10%+ on currency exchange. So in EU, stick to CC, and maybe just have 50 bucks of emergency cash.
On the other hand, in cheap countries like say Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, exchanging paper currency (especially USD) to a local currency and back to USD is almost free (<~1%)
Rates yes, but fees not. Unless you're a US resident and can get a Charles Schwabs, you're going to pay all those ATM fees that a lot of countries charge, for example the inescapable US$6 fee in Thailand.
Unfortunately it seems like every card I have has a foreign transaction fee. I'm traveling now and everytime I use my Chase/Visa "Freedom" card I get the fee. And every time I use my Amex I get it too.
- rolling things into logs (time consuming and not space-saving), rather than using compression packing cubes which are quick and easy, organized and actually save a significant amount of space.
- Packing your own tide pods (risky, heavy and unnecessary), just buy detergent locally or use a full service laundromat which is common for locals in many countries
- If you have to wrap cords with hair ties, you have too many cords (I'll admit this one could be personal)
- Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are a terrible option for travel food. They're soft, squishy, messy and don't last long. If you want to travel with food, pack granola bars or trail mix.
This idea that nyc isn't real America and some fly over country city bugs me a lot. Its marketing that says NYC isn't authentic.
if you say something like
> They’ve got such a strong self-image, a strong desire to be seen as special, that many residents have become actors playing NYC, or LA.
Then claim your traveling like a real local, i cant help but feel your kind of full of it. If this is your take away, you didn't travel like a local, you didn't meet enough new yorkers. Probably met an extroverted transplant and judged from there. A small part of what makes up a place like NYC. Its like someone is looking to feed their bias about what a place should be like.
>Cities where the residents are more focused on living their life, for themselves, not for a global audience.
This is what NYC is. 10 million people, and you think they're putting on a show for a global audience?
Be a local always bugged me. Its seem to always be followed up by, hang out in dive bars and crappy restaurants and do poverty things. I'm local, my friends are local. We don't hang out in dive bars, or eat at crappy restaurants. Why would i think that is the thing to do in another country? After traveling a bit, if you cant speak the local language you'll never understand what its like to be local or understand their life.
"That doesn’t mean entirely ignoring places like NYC, Istanbul, Seoul, or Tokyo. Some cities are so important they can’t be missed, and every city is a confederation of very different neighborhoods. NYC is as much Dyker Heights as it is Upper East Side.
That makes where you stay in a city more important than the city itself. "
right before this is a section about how ho chi minh city is a big tourist city but suggests real or authentic vietnam is in hanoi. then a comparison between that says ho chi minh city is nyc, that people should visit indianapolis for a true american experience and that nyc is full of the cynical take i quoted above.
That quote "doesnt mean ignoring ...nyc..." reads more like NYC is a great show, go their for entertainment and spectacle of what it is, but somehow that's not real america.
No. The intent was go to Dyker heights, Hunts point, Jackson Heights, Sunset Park, Jamaica, Crown Heights. Not just Upper East Side or Times Square.
Nowhere do I talk about Real or Fake or whatever. Everyplace is as real as any other place. Its about who you want to meet. How fancy you want stuff to be. How packaged.
>reads more like NYC is a great show, go their for entertainment and spectacle of what it is, but somehow that's not real america.
Well, statistically it's true. I've visited most of the US, and NYC is very different and not represenative. If you want to see how "the other 96%" lives, better visit elsewhere. The same is not true for most if not all other states: they have their unique culture and might be rich or poor and so on, but not is as different to the rest as NYC. Not even Los Angeles or Miami.
>> They’ve got such a strong self-image, a strong desire to be seen as special, that many residents have become actors playing NYC, or LA.
>Then claim your traveling like a real local, i cant help but feel your kind of full of it. If this is your take away, you didn't travel like a local, you didn't meet enough new yorkers.
Similarly in LA. Anytime someone says that "everyone in LA is fake," I find that reflects more poorly on them and how they spent their time there than it does LA. Big cities are different, not inauthentic.
NYC, LA, and Chicago are bubbles. They are not reflective of the rest of the US in my experience. They are much more cosmopolitan and are the top destinations for tourists, migrants, and other people looking for opportunities. You can find a little bit of the rest of the world within 30 sq. miles in those cities. I can't really say the same for the rest of the major American metropolises. Boston, DC, SF, Seattle come pretty close, though.
Where I do diverge in opinion w/ the article (and agree with you on) is the whole idea of traveling "like a local", as a lot of traveloguers like to call it. I think the best most travelers can expect is maybe some curiosity from the community they're visiting, but they'll never have the full local experience. Only locals get that experience. You could live in a foreign city for years and even learn the language, but you will always be an outsider to the people in that community. You will never gain the years of culture and context that comes with having grown up in the area you are visiting. The best you could ever do in that situation is accept it and be gracious and courteous to the people in those communities.
> NYC, LA, and Chicago are bubbles. They are not reflective of the rest of the US in my experience.
I'm from the US. Having lived for years in each of New York, LA, Seattle, and 6 other metro areas, towns, and census designated places in the US ranging from ~3000000 to ~300 people in the American South and West, I pretty strongly disagree. All places are bubbles to a degree - that's what makes them definable as places.
Having lived outside the US for the last decade, and for months-long stretches over the decades before my current (indefinite) expatriation, it could not be clearer to me that - as people within the larger place (bubble) of the USA - the median New Yorker, Angeleno, or Chicagoan each has more in common, culturally, with the median Dakotan, Alaskan, Alabamian, or Puertorriqueño than with the median Irish, Bedouin, Xhosa, or Punjabi.
And I cannot but reserve the deepest contempt - truly - for those who would exclude city dwellers from full citizenship within their national polities. The combined metro areas of New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago alone are about a sixth of the total population of the USA. Add your examples of Boston, DC, SF, Seattle and you're at 20%. As of the 2020 census, 55% of Americans lived in a metropolitan area of greater than 1 million people. The "real america" narrative is an 'othering' trope, used in the service of dehumanization for political ends.
"Real America" is a narrative to understand the (mostly) White, Christian, blue collar, small town folks.
> Real America is a very old place. The idea that the authentic heart of democracy beats hardest in common people who work with their hands goes back to the 18th century. It was embryonic in the founding creed of equality.
This Atlantic article from last year puts "Real America" into a frame with 3 other narratives: "Smart America", "Just America", and "Free America".
I don't think most people legitimately enjoy "empty military museums" "walking across town aimlessly twice" "visiting in bad weather" "watching bad soccer matches" "eating at the same place three quarters of meals for 8 weeks"
I do 4-8 month backpacking trips semi-regularly and try to visit new countries whenever possible... But even I can't find a single piece of appreciable advice from this whole read.
Arnade is one of the more interesting writers online these days. Tastes vary, of course, but let's try to avoid the middlebrow dismissal thing here. Your comment would be fine without that first bit.
Secondly, I don’t even agree with the parent commenter, but I actually like that HN has some of this middlebrow dismissal. It’s unpleasant and goes too far at times, but it also creates an atmosphere where I know I’m going to get a “real” perspective.
Not telling you what to do here. Just a proposal in case it changes how you and the squad might want to moderate (or not) going forward!
i appreciate your feedback, but wouldn't consider my response shallow. I took time to read all of his suggestions and referenced them exhaustively in my critique.
The problem was that you reduced all of that ("all this to say") to a single blob of dumbness ("I'm a contrarian") which the OP never actually said. The problem with that kind of comment is it makes discussion more predictable and less interesting.
I understand the impulse to take someone's work and reduce it to a single obvious gesture of stupidity - it feels good because it feels like one has explained something and expunged an irritant - but it isn't fair and it isn't what this forum is for.
There's another guideline that applies to cases like this too:
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
People travel for different reasons, and that's OK. Chris' reasons are stated in his post:
"This style of travel, of aiming to be a local, isn’t for everyone. I’m blessed with a lot of free time, and it’s best done in weeks, not days."
And
"Traveling is my education, so I treat the question like choosing which course to take. What do I want to learn about this semester? For me, currently that’s faith and religion. So I’ve been trying to go to places of deep faith, and ones different from what I’m familiar with. To see faith as it’s practiced by the average follower, not by the high priests, or the most sacrosanct. The local mosque rather than the Blue mosque"
He really does want to create relationships with the people in the places that he visits. And he's done that for years. His book Dignity chronicles a lot of his writing about the differences between the "front of the classroom" and the "back of the classroom" people. He focuses on trying to just listen and understand how other people live rather than sitting back and judging them based on tiny snippets of their worlds that you see in places like the news.
So this is very much on brand for him, and I applaud him for sharing how he does what he does with us. And FWIW he did come from a very Western elite background as well: PhD in particle physics, bond trader on Wall Street before escaping that life at considerable personal cost to live this life of trying to show us how others live.
>He really does want to create relationships with the people in the places that he visits.
i really appreciate that idea as well.
that's why I read the article, seeking ways i could develop more relationships with locals. only, I couldn't appreciate any single piece of advice. I've been to soccer matches and museums and bars, none of them led me to local parties, invitations dinner, sailboat excursions, etc.s
for instance i can come up with a few from my experiences:
- Hitchhike, even when you have money and there is a bus route, is a great way to make an excuse to have a long conversation with a local. It also allows them the opportunity to feel like they're a good person doing a good thing.
- if exploring and you think someone is curious about you, don't keep just walking. take a seat, exaggerate how hot you feel, etc. and often that person will approach and offer you tea or water.
- look for local conventions or clubs that are meeting, and spend a few days learning that subculture and attend as a novice. even if its a totally new field for you, people love evangelizing to newbies at conventions.
I've wondered how he does this too. He alludes to it "go back to the same place every day for weeks at a time". But he doesn't really go beyond this. I need to remember to ask for an article that goes into more detail about his approach. It could be that he's just very gregarious with strangers - don't really know.
> I don't think most people legitimately enjoy "empty military museums" "walking across town aimlessly twice"
Not in and of itself, you are right, but I do enjoy the happenstance encounters along the way. Like the time I was aimlessly walking through a neighbourhood in a far off city, heard someone holler in my direction, and out of that was invited in to join their barbecue. I don't remember the rest of the walk at all, but I sure do remember the fun people I met and the great time I had there.
Yep, you have to create situations with potential for weird and wonderful stuff to happen. If you’re hell bent on following a rigid plan there’s no cracks in between for the plants to grow.
I've cut that down a bit. When I wondered in old town Mombasa, Kenya last year, some people got out of a taxi and warned me to turn around and go back because I was in a very dangerous area for tourists. It was certainly quiet, but it was clean in the city.
Living in Seattle, there are certain parts of downtown that I would normally feel comfortable walking through but was warned by locals about gun and drug violence.
There are many examples of lost tourists in Mexico or South America that get approached by drug traffickers on YouTube.
It is extremely difficult to go wrong in Vietnam, but there are many places that appear peaceful but are actually run by crime.
I drove a foreign friend through SouthCentral (where the riots started) in the mid 90s. She really liked the neighborhood with big streets and palm trees. I pointed out the bars on the windows and she said her homes had all had bars on the windows growing up. She also liked that there were a lot more people hanging out, until I pointed out it was a school day and the kids on the corner ought to be there instead. Also, that I was blowing stop signs didn't bother her, until I mentioned that we would be expected to buy crack, if we stopped.
Of course when I visited her home town and walked up a hill for the view one afternoon, I didn't think that much about a syringes off the side of the trail, but her family lost their minds that I had been in the most dangerous part of the city, "people are killed there all the time".
We are terrible about judging dangerous areas outside of our cultural experience. Many westerner's can't even identify a RedLight area in Asia, "Why are all those women wearing such short dresses?", "all those girls (actually boys) are really dressed up nice".
I imagine someone visiting my "home" cities using that strategy, and it's hilarious how wildly incorrect and poor their experience of these places would be. Like a local? Ok, just not like any local I've ever met living here.
Anyone who has ever been a local knows that locals spend time living their life; they rarely go to museums, etc in their own town; and if they do they probably go to specific ones multiple times (the ones that go with their hobbies, say).
There is something to "not being a stereotypical tourist" but that's easy enough to do by being polite, and paying attention to what is going on, and wandering off the beaten path now and then.
Visiting off-season can be a great deal, especially if you're not concerned with weather (for example, if you're going to be visiting museums in Rome, they will be open during the rain as well as the shine).
"Living like a local" in most places means spending the majority of your waking hours working to pay rent and much of the rest of it doing household chores, and your rare trips out being more likely to be to McDonalds than to enjoy the local cuisine...
That's how I like to travel. Stay with someone, help with their chores, go to work when they do (the benefits of WFH), basically mirror the life they live. Those rare trips get compressed somewhat, largely because being able to share the experience with the host means that there is greater desire to make those rare trips happen while I am there as a guest, but not excessively.
There used to be (maybe still is) a pretty robust couch surfing crowd in the days before airbnb. I did a decent amount of traveling that way in my 20s around the world and was able to accomplish this that way. Good times.
I mean looking around where I live (a quiet, fairly middle class suburb), I'm sure they would get bored pretty quickly. There's no stores or landmarks here, just some playgrounds and bits of greenery. People live here, they do business and entertainment elsewhere.
I also would not go exactly where the author goes, or do what the author does, but I appreciate the stimulation of being taken out of the pre-packaged presentation and into reality.
You are a backpacker so you already embrace the spirit of the article. You already have a purpose to your trip that takes you outside of tourist traps. Tourism packages destinations so they all start to look the same.
You are not a contrarian. You have an alternate path to the same goal.
You can even do this locally (no need to travel). My husband and I started biking and often this takes us to unseen parts of our own community.
So, two counterpoints. One is that although most people probably won't enjoy it, enough of a fraction will.
The other - just like I don't follow Richard Stallman's extremism but find some of his ideas interesting, I think she of the mentality in the blog post could be applicable to most people. For example, staying in a hip neighborhood in Paris for a couple of weeks but taking half a day to visit some niche "people just live here" suburbs or countryside.
I think there's a middle ground. Nowadays, with exponential growth in tourism, the most famous places can feel a bit hellish if you don't like crowds. Without going to extremes, it's worth looking for slightly less popular options or avoiding peak times, even if that means getting suboptimal weather.
Being a regular at a small selection of bars or restaurants is just good advice on how to make friends. I assume the same can be said about pretending to be an avid fan of a bad soccer team.
You could title the blog post "I care about the people, not the place. This is how that affects my travels".
The writing just felt "off". To me. Like the incomplete sentences. Mostly.
I get what the writer is getting at, and I think some of his ideas are fine. I envy his travel time. And I'll have to make my way to the tips on packing, because the one time I did go overseas, I way overpacked.
FWIW I do enjoy walking around town aimlessly - if you haven't done it, you should try. It's how I've experienced Boston, New York, Munich, Belgrade and San Francisco. Of course I find a few places online that I should check out, like the fortress in Belgrade or the Eisbock and gardens in Munich. But "aimless walking" through ubran areas is the essence of peace for me. I am rarely happier.
>the one time I did go overseas, I way overpacked.
For urban/semi-urban travel (i.e. don't require a lot of specialized gear/just in case supplies) carry-on is pretty doable for most people--though I wouldn't go as far as tiny backpack. It requires a certain mindset. You're not going to have a lot of outfits and may be dressed on the downscale side if you go to nice restaurants, etc. Make a lot of things do double/triple duty. You may be washing some clothes in the hotel sink. You're prepared to buy something you need in a pinch.
I'm not fanatical about it and do carry enough stuff to want to drop off a bag wherever I'm staying but rarely check luggage either.
Indeed. I bought an bag from $fancybrand at REI that doubles as backpack and luggage. It is compressible and is about as large as a carryon bag can be.
When I travel via air, I wear the least compressible shoes possible (boots) on the plane and squeeze loafers or tennis shoes in the bag. My blue jeans are upscale enough to look casual but also look well at dinner. And yes, at least one nice shirt is needed for dining out or looking decent at a bar.
My standard is a 40L travel backpack and a compact shoulder bag that can hold a laptop and/or stuff for walking around town for the day.
Recently (pre-pandemic) when I was doing a lot of travel I did optimize my clothing somewhat for synthetics and merino wool that could be easily washed and dried quickly. And, yes, I usually have walking shoes--whether they're trail shoes or leather walking shoes depends on the trip and some sort of very compact light shoe as backup etc. Also a couple little kits that have all sorts of cables, repair items, basic first aid...
Because, as you no doubt already know, the only useful advice is "just do it" - the whole point is that you are more capable than you think (or I guess not you since you've already put yourself to the test I suspect).
I guess there are more than one type of people. Some people like to watch sports for the individual performance of top athletes. Other people, love to watch the game, and to them it doesn't matter much whether the players are in the top 0.01%. Try watching a high school baseball game, and see whether you enjoy the experience as much, or more, than a major league game. Errors just add to the fun!
I'm curious what you do like to do while traveling?
I would much rather go to an empty museum than something stuffed full of people like the Louvre and I would much rather go to a local sporting even than a Lakers game or something like that.
Rick Steves said something like this once, about trying to get the essence of a place. I think maybe there’s no use avoiding that wherever you go there you are.
I remember his adamance that he would never drink a beer in some Italian place, because people there drink red wine. Meanwhile I’m pretty sure you can find plenty of people around Italy who enjoy a beer, or slivovitz or whatever.
Not only that but you’re not a local- and so what? Travel, that is to say seeing other parts of the world than one’s own, need not involve an attempt at escaping into some other life.
As someone who grew up in the global South, this reads to me like a person from a privileged background trying to relate to the everyday people in other places and the marginalized- but it comes off sounding like a lot of projectionand assumptions- it would read much better if the conclusions were accompanied with dialogue from people, maybe explanations of where those statements are coming from.
>I don’t travel like most people do I would think most travel is done by a wealthy few, but most travelers aren't wealthy- if that makes sense? It sounds like the "travel" being referred to here is "flying somewhere and being a tourist" but in fact to many people "travel" means taking the train/bus to another city, staying in a hostel, wandering around. Most people who go to see a wonder of the world do it because this might be the one time in their life they can afford to visit NYC, a place many people dream of seeing, and so they want to experience those things that are iconic there. I guess it really stands out to me, this writing sounds like "I'm not like those other stereotypical tourists" and the stereotypes are those behaviors associated with privileged westerners- which isn't really an accurate representation of most travelers.
From the Istanbul post:
>Most Turks are not secular though, and neither are they religious nuts like them Arabs
He considers education by traveling as sufficient, which I believe is not the best approach. Might be a good idea to read up a little about the history and cultures of a region before going.
There is a lot going on with his writing that comes off ethnocentric, uninformed, insensitive. I'm not going to dissect it, but I'll just say I recommend familiarization with cultural geography, anthropology, and ethnography if the topic of understanding people in different places interests you- because this blog is rife with problematic bias and some really broad generalizations that are prejudice at best, racism at worst.