8 Observations of Travel - TravelPUNK Backpacker College Student Budget Travel Message Boards!

**Canadian Bacon** · 07-17-2012, 11:46 AM

Hey Tpunks!

So I recently decided to start writing more often and perhaps make a career out of it somewhere down the road. As a first step, I'm going to start contributing more to online writing sites like Thought Catalog.

They say "write what you know" and when I look at my life, the only thing I really know about is travel! So here you go, my first piece: 8 Observation of Travel.

Feedback & ideas for additions are welcome!

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8 Observations of Travel / A Tao of Backpacking

1. European coffee is always better in Europe, just as Turkish tea in Turkey, and Sangria in Spain: you can buy the same stuff, or make it using the same machines, but drinking it at home in North America just won’t be the same. It’s something about the environment, about who you’re with, about the characteristics of the local water, about the thousand things that make something just so. Better to just enjoy it, smile, and let go.

2. Sometimes your skin colour will suck and sometimes it will be great. My family’s from Hong Kong so I have full southern Chinese features and sure, it sucks when I’m in Europe and I occasionally get the ‘Marty Mcfly walks into a Bar’ treatment. At times like this I think ‘you know it would be great to be white right now.’ But when I’m in Japan, Thailand or Dubai, my skin colour is freaking sweet because no one bothers me or gives me a second glance and then I think ‘yes, this balances it all out quite nicely.’

3. There is a limit to which you can absorb even the most golden moments. Like, you know when you watched those massive space battle scenes in Star Wars and you just knew that your brain could not comprehend how many awesome things there were flying around at once? The same is true for those moments of travel that you know should feel golden but somehow just feel silver. A fundamental truth is that no matter how epic and awesome this landscape is, no matter how awesome this food is, no matter how whatever this whatever is, it is just a moment that will pass like all the others. These moments will feel, by their nature, unfinished. Because they are the raw material for your nostalgia to bake and transform into that farm fuzzy cake that are your memories. This is not to say there aren’t moments truly made of gold, but these are fleeting, and to be treasured.

4. Tourists stupider than you will be the ones to get robbed. And there will always be stupid tourists around. My first time to Barcelona I was so paranoid that I checked my backpack every five second and walked down the street with my hand on my wallet in my front right pocket. Later that night, one of the Aussies we got shitfaced with passed out in the main square and got back to the hostel at like 6am and he was like “yeah, I got robbed”. You see – he deserved it. Generally speaking, a person exercising regular precautions will not get robbed. Chances are, the only thing the paranoid person is robbed of is their enjoyment of wherever they are.

5. You get back what you put in; a smile/friendly gesture goes a long way anywhere in the world. I have walked through countless more sketchy areas and places that stumbled upon while wandering around alone, but I have found that as long as I smiled at people, relaxed your shoulders and seemed at easy, said hello to people who looked at you, people around you will also relax and welcome you. Conversely, if you are walking down the street all scared and paranoid, people will be more likely to be hostile toward you and greet you with contempt. (That said, I am a guy… this may be a little different for women, where a hello or smile may be interpreted differently.)

6. The pictures you take of the people you meet and of the hilarious events that occur will be more meaningful than any picture of any monument or church that you can find on a Google Images search. That blurred pictures of a hand holding a cigarette over a cobblestone road somewhere wandering through Paris may be your favourite picture. But, it’s a trade off: busting out your camera to capture these situations may feel awkward and lame (unless you’re really drunk) but in the end, it’s worth it.

7. Travelling without your girlfriend/significant other will ironically make you so much more likely to be in a place where you could potentially hook-up with no one back home ever knowing. But we warned: when you’re flying home and you’re at the airport and you hug and kiss your lover, a little demon appears and inserts a tiny car jack between you two and will crank once for every second you don’t come clean. And few people come clean because – let’s face it – that shit is scary.

8. Past differences of form, the rhythm of life of all peoples and societies is remarkably similar. Everywhere in the world people are quiet on the morning commute. In any given country, one can go to a local library to find old people hanging out because they have nothing else to do. Teenagers who sit on the metro will always take up way too much space. People will always idolize life in a far-away place, and port cities will always be a wretched hive of scum and villainry. It’s like the same plants grown in different soils. The differences are really those of emphasis. For example, in Europe where they really emphasize the social aspect of eating which means you sit there for like hours to talk over dinner. If you got nothing to talk about, well then you make up stuff to talk about. This trains good social habits from childhood and I suspect is the reason it always seems like a table full of Italians never run out of things to say.