Travelling is a living experience that cuts you off from the dead monotony of everyday life. However, each one of us suffers from travelling blues, at least if we are new in the field of travelling. Our fears are accentuated by loads and loads of travelling advise coming in from all the quarters letting us know what to do and how exactly to do it.
With cross-culturalism building up and the physical borders between the nations diluting, the old notions about travelling have changed. In tune with this change, it is time to shed some of our traditional notional sense about travelling and take unchartered routes to untouched regions with the mind freer of stereotype thinking. Here is a list of a few popular (both conventional and new) travelling trips not to expend your time on thinking over-
- Ignore talking to strangers
This is a typical stereotype advice doled out by friends and relatives alike when you go out to travel. But why should you not? Talking to and intermingling with the people of the locality you visit in fact boosts your travelling experience. The local people laden with native knowledge of out of the sight places worth visiting, folk lore and legends certainly help the traveler learn the place better and the customs of the people. This also helps break the wall of insulation that keeps us from understanding the other communities.
- Buy travel goodies before you go out travelling-
With the fire of travelling spreading wild among the people, certain companies are quick to cash in. Hence, a number of goodies are available in the market for the use of more meticulous travelers – fancy backpacks, foldable spoons and forks, mummy type or wearable sleeping bags, camping gear, Urinelle, Chamois leather towel, disposable underwear and eye-contact lenses. Not all of them are outright useless, but one could dispense with most of them given their actual utility. The result is an unwanted investment on a lot many goods and carrying them all along the travelling and being worn out carrying them along.
- Volun-tourism is a way of serving the host country
It is the culture of giving voluntary services in the host country by the tourists, be it in assisting in delivery of medical aid or digging canals and ponds. This is certainly a gesture of goodwill, but issues of negative cultural influence, lack of proper skills among the volunteers, instances of child-abuse and exploitation of the natives add an element of distaste to it. Thus instead of serving the community in the host country, a person might be actually harming it.
- Keep all the valuables together
This is the most ridiculous of advises that you will faithfully adhere to. Travelling involves moments of stress and carelessness when a person is likely to lose his valuable like cell phones, cameras and cash, documents like passport and cards and other travel related documents like pre-booked tickets.
By keeping all of them in one place a person runs the risk of losing them all at once. So keeping them all separately will help mitigate the losses in case of such an eventuality and prevent it from developing into a full-fledged travel crisis. In addition, you must keep some money away in some concealed pocket so that you can at least contact your friends and relatives and make some arrangement of getting out from this unpleasant situation.
- Never travel alone
Travelling has different meanings for different people- adventure, pilgrimage, nature walking, and site seeing and so on. So grouping together like minded people when going out on travels and that too at a time convenient to all of them is a difficult task.
So it is better to travel alone than travelling not at all or with an experience less than satisfying. The old time tested tradition of travelling in groups is being busted and the travel enthusiasts are today venturing out alone more often to fulfill their dream of seeing what actually they would like to see or doing what pleases them the most.
Do not waste time pondering over the travelling tips served to you. Just gather your travelling gear and chart out your own way to enrich your travelling with your own experiences.