I would love to say that I am a travel junkie, oozing with wanderlust or, in buzzfeed-speak, one whose life is made of #travelgoals. But, besides these descriptions being highly vague and stilted, they would be impossible to factually substantiate in my case.
However, in the little I have traveled, there are some important things I have understood - lessons which have only been reinforced with every single outing. And I would like to share them - mostly because this is my blog and I share things here, and also because some of these lessons came back to me in my recent trip to a couple of countries in Europe.
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| A group pic from Gokarna (2013) just because! |
- Pick close friends whom you bond with (or family) as travel companions. Unless you are some maniac who gets thrills from the likelihood of being let down. If there are no such people available, go solo (actually going solo might just trump everything, but that's a topic for another day)
- Do not aim to make the entire group happy, even if you are with close friends. Traveling in a group doesn't mean the individuals need to be glued together. If people differ, let everyone do their thing and regroup only when you find a common agenda which, if you follow the previous point, you will.
- Draw a broad list of must-do's and optionals and make sure everyone largely agrees to these in order to save future heartburn. Even if you are 'backpacking'.
- Don't follow the herd. As counter-intuitive as it may sound, if you visit a famous tourist spot, and are standing in a long queue to buy a ticket, there is likely some place right next to it which packs hundred times the wonder and brilliance, is free and has nobody checking that out.
My earliest recollection of this is from the time when I was eight. My family chanced upon a godforsaken zoo in Mysore, laughed at a decrepit board reading 'Penguins', and lost our minds when we found a huge group of frickin' penguins waddling in a pool of icy cold water, in the Indian summer!
More recently, I experienced this while walking the roads and community parks in Prague and Vienna, where I found magic in the most uncanny of places (the picture below shows at least a 100 people huddled in a 15 by 15 m area to watch a renowned hourly clock tower ritual which was quite a damp squib. Meanwhile, just a 100 m away, what is happening the video was happening)
- Talk to people and ask about things you don't understand. This could range from asking directions to asking if something you are wearing or doing is proper in a culture, to inquiring fellow travellers/ locals if some place you are planning to visit is worth it.
- Wiki travels is awesome. And so is google maps. Also, not that it is something that I learnt recently but only realized the full use of in my last trip is GPS! Honest. Just load a google map of an area and you do not need the internet (which is a problem on some trips) and never get lost.
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| At the fag end were the graves of Beethoven and Brahms! |
- Walk. If you are an aam aadmi like me, your feet may hurt. A lot. Carry one of those pain relief gels. And keep walking.
- Go absolute crazy. Or do something that your instinct is wary of. Trust me, this need not involve alcohol. Like walking around in one of the largest cemeteries in the world after twilight. With not a soul around. Or perhaps, with some around.
Because stories are never made of the mundane. And one can buy all the fridge magnets they want. But it is only the stories that stay with you. Forever.
