I had a moment of clarity for the first time when I was in a small kitchen in Porto watching a woman named Fernanda call out to her son, "Ah Fernandinho, o caldo verde não se faz assim!," or a way of making caldo verde(green soup) that is not the way. She was not doing a show at any place. I was not explaining to her that I was unknowingly "travel filing" it as a "travel memory. No, she had no idea that I was unknowingly "travel filing" it as a "travel memory. It was just that he used the wrong kind of sausage that made her mad.
At the time it had been three weeks since I was in Portugal. I'd been on the tram rides, the miraculous, the wine caves in the Douro Valley, on the postcard rides. It was all really beautiful. But it was more than any walking tour ever did; that kitchen with yellow cracked tiles and the scent of simmering broth taught me more about Porto. It was a learning experience: The city has views. It had arguments. It really had a particular feeling related to sausage.
This is the change that makes a difference to a traveler. When you no longer look at a location but at the people that are there.
Both of these versions are similar and at times, they are quite overlapping. But it's the space in between them that will be the most intriguing part of the trip.
After ten years or so of languidly packing my bags for weeks or months at a time, as opposed to a few days, the one thing I have learned is that the people who live there don't go where the tourists go. Not for the reason that they're snobs about it, but because they have lives to live. This is no experience in the backdrop of their city. It's where they get their dry cleaning, have lunch on Tuesdays, gripe about construction sounds, and age. Once you start to travel in a manner similar to theirs, you start to experience what they experience and the map you brought with you starts to come into focus, remodeling and becoming more real.
The actual one is not as sexy, but is much more rewarding. It involves having the discomfort of boredom as a part of the package. It is not just a festival weekend in which locals can experience their city. You get to experience the real spirit of a city, not the show, when you slow down a little to feel the everyday pulse of a city: the school run in the morning, the bakery lunch hour rush, the Sunday afternoon quiet.
I was in Japan, in a medium-sized town in the south which is hardly on the tourist circuit. This location didn't have any outstanding temple around the corner. It took more than an hour to take the train to Osaka. After two weeks I knew the name of the woman who owned the konbini(convenience store) close to my apartment, knew the name of the man who had invited me to an area baseball game after feeding the ducks in the park, and knew the name of a place with no English menu that I had a table at. All that was not in any guide-book. It's all with me much more distinctly than most of the famous that I've seen. You check some amazing travel blogs template like Wind Spot which is useful to share traveling experience and insights.
- Buy from local markets, rather than from tourist markets. The stalls that are targeted at visitors, promote the same products across all countries. The neighborhood fruit market, the street market that's held once a week, the butcher in a residential street, these are the kinds of places people are amiable, at home and at ease, and generally willing to assist a foreigner as they fumble their way through a situation to which they have no clue, and are unsure what they've just purchased.
Take as much public transport as possible. Buses especially. Tourists are traveling by train, other people are traveling by city bus. You will be seated with other students, old men with shopping bags, workers taking their lunch break. Probably nothing out of the ordinary will occur. However, you will get to experience the feel of everyday life that you won't get from a cabs or ride share.
- Pick up 5-10 words in the language of the area, and use them imperfectly. Not so you can learn the language, but because when you try the language you are saying something: that you are not going to have the world conform to your desires. If you say thank you or hello in an accent that you're not used to, it will practically always elicit a smile, and smiling is the way to start a conversation.
- Go to lunch with workers at the workers' lunches. That's almost always the best bang for your buck, and the most authentic food in any city – the place with the paper tablecloths, no photos of the food on the menu and a bunch of people who look as though they are on a 45-minute break from their office.
- Identify a motivation to return to the same location on two occasions. Coffee shop and park bench, bakery. If you do it regularly, people will be able to recognize you, and if you're recognized, doors will open for you. The second occasion was that I walked into a small bar in Seville, the barman recalled my order. On the third visit he informed me about his daughter and how she was performing in school.
- Become a member of a group, or for a short time. A group of runners in the local area or a free community event or a cooking class organized by a home cook, not a hotel. What makes for natural conversation is sharing activity, which is what the monument is not.
But there's a fundamental difference in information and intimacy. A tour provides you the previous. A kitchen table conversation, the one where someone invites you to his or her home for dinner or a new friend brings you home to his or her family is closer.
Finally in Porto, when Fernanda let me chop the vegetables (after deciding I was doing it wrong, I had to improve my technique and she let me do it), she discussed the neighborhood as no tour could have done. She shared information on the families that have been living in the street for generations and which buildings had been sold off since the financial crisis. She shared some of her grandmother's stories, who cooked in the same kitchen. She grumbled with regards to parking. She really asked me what I didn't like about home.
It was just one of those exchanges – nothing unusual or special – just a little chaotic, as was the norm for her. It's brief, usually. You're still leaving. For a day, for an hour, for an afternoon, the map will be dissolved and I, at least, am in a place, among people, without the glass between them.
When you're traveling through a spot, every hour planned and every meal being pre-booked and every attraction pre-researched, you're not traveling, you're executing a plan about a place that you made from afar. The place itself hardly has the chance to feature. You're too preoccupied to make sure that it's what you'd envisioned.
The best things that have happened to me on the road were as a result of cancelling a plan and/or missing a bus. I took a wrong turn in Tbilisi, and ended up in a neighborhood barbecue, where I spent 4 hours eating and trying to follow a conversation in Georgian. A late train in rural Vietnam resulted in an unscheduled night in a town where I was, literally, the only foreigner that anybody had seen in a long time, so a teacher who spoke halting English, but was so thrilled to practice, took me out for a ride on his motorbike and a tour of the town's history.
This kind of stuff just can't be planned. All you can do is set the stage for it: slow down, linger, don't be so rigid about your schedule, and be aware of what you will find, not what you expect to find.
I do believe there's something to ponder in the fundamental query of what we are attempting to achieve whilst traveling. If the purpose is to see sights – to see all the famous sights – then the regular tourist circuit is just fine. It's okay to do so.
To understand, however, to understand a place, the people who live in it, to understand what life is like there, to understand what it is to be there — you have to get close. You do have to perch in kitchens and ride clunky buses and contort your way around the local tongue and eat foods you don't recognize.
Map lines are useful for a number of reasons. They inform you of borders, the identification of neighborhoods, how to go from one to another. But they don't explain anything about the feeling of the inside of these lines. It's not information that you can read. You can't find it unless you go there, slow down and discover where they are by having them tell you where they are.
All the locations I have been for a while have taken me aback. Not in the over-dramatic, travel-writing fashion. Yet quietly, persistently there in the in between, what I was looking for and what was there. I have come to realize that's the sole idea.
At the time it had been three weeks since I was in Portugal. I'd been on the tram rides, the miraculous, the wine caves in the Douro Valley, on the postcard rides. It was all really beautiful. But it was more than any walking tour ever did; that kitchen with yellow cracked tiles and the scent of simmering broth taught me more about Porto. It was a learning experience: The city has views. It had arguments. It really had a particular feeling related to sausage.
This is the change that makes a difference to a traveler. When you no longer look at a location but at the people that are there.
While the Tourist Map is a great resource, it's not the whole story.
In each city there are two versions of the city. Then there's the one that appears in guidebooks - the "squares to see" and "hidden gem" restaurants mentioned in so many magazines they're hardly hidden anymore, and the "must-see" museums. Then there's the version that has been created for the residents.Both of these versions are similar and at times, they are quite overlapping. But it's the space in between them that will be the most intriguing part of the trip.
After ten years or so of languidly packing my bags for weeks or months at a time, as opposed to a few days, the one thing I have learned is that the people who live there don't go where the tourists go. Not for the reason that they're snobs about it, but because they have lives to live. This is no experience in the backdrop of their city. It's where they get their dry cleaning, have lunch on Tuesdays, gripe about construction sounds, and age. Once you start to travel in a manner similar to theirs, you start to experience what they experience and the map you brought with you starts to come into focus, remodeling and becoming more real.
The meaning of "Traveling Like a Local" (and what it doesn't say)
You've heard it time and time again – ‘travel like a local'. It's what people utilize when they select to remain in a neighborhood Airbnb rather than a hotel, or choose local pasta over a burger. That's OK but that's at the surface.The actual one is not as sexy, but is much more rewarding. It involves having the discomfort of boredom as a part of the package. It is not just a festival weekend in which locals can experience their city. You get to experience the real spirit of a city, not the show, when you slow down a little to feel the everyday pulse of a city: the school run in the morning, the bakery lunch hour rush, the Sunday afternoon quiet.
I was in Japan, in a medium-sized town in the south which is hardly on the tourist circuit. This location didn't have any outstanding temple around the corner. It took more than an hour to take the train to Osaka. After two weeks I knew the name of the woman who owned the konbini(convenience store) close to my apartment, knew the name of the man who had invited me to an area baseball game after feeding the ducks in the park, and knew the name of a place with no English menu that I had a table at. All that was not in any guide-book. It's all with me much more distinctly than most of the famous that I've seen. You check some amazing travel blogs template like Wind Spot which is useful to share traveling experience and insights.
How you can TRULY engage the masses around you.
Where many travel tips get murky. It seems common sense to ‘talk to locals'. But how, exactly? Most people will not go to an unknown person in an unfamiliar place, and start a conversation for no apparent reason. Here are a few things that have been successful for me throughout the years:- Buy from local markets, rather than from tourist markets. The stalls that are targeted at visitors, promote the same products across all countries. The neighborhood fruit market, the street market that's held once a week, the butcher in a residential street, these are the kinds of places people are amiable, at home and at ease, and generally willing to assist a foreigner as they fumble their way through a situation to which they have no clue, and are unsure what they've just purchased.
Take as much public transport as possible. Buses especially. Tourists are traveling by train, other people are traveling by city bus. You will be seated with other students, old men with shopping bags, workers taking their lunch break. Probably nothing out of the ordinary will occur. However, you will get to experience the feel of everyday life that you won't get from a cabs or ride share.
- Pick up 5-10 words in the language of the area, and use them imperfectly. Not so you can learn the language, but because when you try the language you are saying something: that you are not going to have the world conform to your desires. If you say thank you or hello in an accent that you're not used to, it will practically always elicit a smile, and smiling is the way to start a conversation.
- Go to lunch with workers at the workers' lunches. That's almost always the best bang for your buck, and the most authentic food in any city – the place with the paper tablecloths, no photos of the food on the menu and a bunch of people who look as though they are on a 45-minute break from their office.
- Identify a motivation to return to the same location on two occasions. Coffee shop and park bench, bakery. If you do it regularly, people will be able to recognize you, and if you're recognized, doors will open for you. The second occasion was that I walked into a small bar in Seville, the barman recalled my order. On the third visit he informed me about his daughter and how she was performing in school.
- Become a member of a group, or for a short time. A group of runners in the local area or a free community event or a cooking class organized by a home cook, not a hotel. What makes for natural conversation is sharing activity, which is what the monument is not.
The Kitchen Table vs. The Tour Group
I'm going to be honest with you, there's nothing wrong with the structured tour. A good local guide can provide you with background, detail and stories, which you might not find out for months if you were off on your own. I have been on tours which really enhanced my understanding of a place.But there's a fundamental difference in information and intimacy. A tour provides you the previous. A kitchen table conversation, the one where someone invites you to his or her home for dinner or a new friend brings you home to his or her family is closer.
Finally in Porto, when Fernanda let me chop the vegetables (after deciding I was doing it wrong, I had to improve my technique and she let me do it), she discussed the neighborhood as no tour could have done. She shared information on the families that have been living in the street for generations and which buildings had been sold off since the financial crisis. She shared some of her grandmother's stories, who cooked in the same kitchen. She grumbled with regards to parking. She really asked me what I didn't like about home.
It was just one of those exchanges – nothing unusual or special – just a little chaotic, as was the norm for her. It's brief, usually. You're still leaving. For a day, for an hour, for an afternoon, the map will be dissolved and I, at least, am in a place, among people, without the glass between them.
It's important to let go of the itinerary to enjoy On Letting Go.
The other thing you have to learn the hard away about is that when you're traveling slowly, you see less and less as the trip gets closer and closer.When you're traveling through a spot, every hour planned and every meal being pre-booked and every attraction pre-researched, you're not traveling, you're executing a plan about a place that you made from afar. The place itself hardly has the chance to feature. You're too preoccupied to make sure that it's what you'd envisioned.
The best things that have happened to me on the road were as a result of cancelling a plan and/or missing a bus. I took a wrong turn in Tbilisi, and ended up in a neighborhood barbecue, where I spent 4 hours eating and trying to follow a conversation in Georgian. A late train in rural Vietnam resulted in an unscheduled night in a town where I was, literally, the only foreigner that anybody had seen in a long time, so a teacher who spoke halting English, but was so thrilled to practice, took me out for a ride on his motorbike and a tour of the town's history.
This kind of stuff just can't be planned. All you can do is set the stage for it: slow down, linger, don't be so rigid about your schedule, and be aware of what you will find, not what you expect to find.
Traveling to this type of destination is important because of the following reasons:
I'm not going to say everybody should do what I do and travel the same way as I do. Slow travel is a luxury, it's about taking the time and being flexible and in a lot of cases spending less per day, but spending more per trip. It is not suitable for all trips and travelers.I do believe there's something to ponder in the fundamental query of what we are attempting to achieve whilst traveling. If the purpose is to see sights – to see all the famous sights – then the regular tourist circuit is just fine. It's okay to do so.
To understand, however, to understand a place, the people who live in it, to understand what life is like there, to understand what it is to be there — you have to get close. You do have to perch in kitchens and ride clunky buses and contort your way around the local tongue and eat foods you don't recognize.
Map lines are useful for a number of reasons. They inform you of borders, the identification of neighborhoods, how to go from one to another. But they don't explain anything about the feeling of the inside of these lines. It's not information that you can read. You can't find it unless you go there, slow down and discover where they are by having them tell you where they are.
All the locations I have been for a while have taken me aback. Not in the over-dramatic, travel-writing fashion. Yet quietly, persistently there in the in between, what I was looking for and what was there. I have come to realize that's the sole idea.
