My travel ABCs

A travel meme has been sweeping the travel blogging world recently, where travel bloggers are posed 26 (!) questions about their travelling life.

I was nominated to take part by Sophie of Sophie’s World. It’s a bit of fun, and you might learn some things about me you didn’t know already. Without further ado:

A: Age of first international trip:

I was whisked from the Seychelles in the womb, born in Wales, and then returned back to the Seychelles as a baby where I lived mostly on a beach and ate sand. So, quite young would be the answer to this.

B: Best (foreign) beer:

Best? Oh dear. I sense a flaw in this series of questions, as I have a slight fear of the idea of things being better than other things. Any cold beer served in the company of good people, or against good scenery, works for me. But if I had to pick, the Australian Coopers Red is a damn fine tipple.

C: Cuisine (favourite):

There’s that favourite idea again. Sigh. I love all kinds of food. If I had to survive on one cuisine for the rest of my life, it would be Kreole food – the traditional food of the Seychelles.

There is so much variety, it carries a lot of spice, and often involves gorgeously fresh fish. It’s so good in fact, that I wrote a whole article about the stuff.

D: Destinations, favourite, least favourite and why:

I think I’m going to have to give up on fighting this meme and go with the flow. I like anywhere with big mountains and epic scenery. New Zealand was a particular recent highlight, as was Australia. I love big, open, empty spaces.

Least favourite? Well… I’ve mentioned Milton Keynes a few times recently as being not the best place in the world. But even Milton Keynes has a roundabout with cows on, so it’s not all bad.

E: Event experienced abroad that made you say “wow”:

I attended a festival in the outback of Australia for the 2009/10 New Year, which largely consisted of a lot of naked hippies, drumming and fire twirling. That was a pretty epic experience.

F: Favourite mode of transportation:

Train. Or plane. Train because you can just get on it and it’s like having a room with an ever changing view. Plane because, dammit, getting from one side of the world to the other in such a short space of time is as close to magic as I’ve ever been. Plus I love aeroplane food. I know.

G: Greatest feeling while travelling:

The thrill of seeing new things. The awe that the world is able to inflict on me. The feeling that I am so insignificant and meaningless, that the world and the universe is so much greater than I could ever possibly hope to imagine.

H: Hottest place travelled to:

The Namib desert. It was over fifty degrees C for most of the day, plus there was a wind "heat” factor from the wind blowing over the desert. It was like sitting in front of an open oven door. Most of the time was spent with a wet towel around my head.

I: Incredible service experienced and where:

Well, the mechanics around Australia were bloody awesome at looking after my landcruiser. Nothing was too much trouble, and they’d often charge less because I clearly looked like a destitute traveller. Amazing people.

J: Journey that took the longest:

Most of my journeys seem to take an epic amount of time due to the cheapness of the flights I take. Europe to New Zealand was particularly long though, although that did include a 13 hour stop over in Shanghai, which more than made up for it.

K: Keepsake from travels:

I try not to collect junk, but I couldn’t resist picking up a little bongo drum in Australia. I know, a drum and dreadlocks. Seriously, could I be any more clichéd? Oh, I also found my girlfriend whilst travelling. She’s definitely not junk!

L: Let-down sight, why and where:

If a sight lets me down, the fault lies with me. I do my best not to let that happen – there is always a positive to be found somewhere. I could mention Milton Keynes again, but I never had high hopes for that as a destination in the first place.

M: Moment where you fell in love with travel:

I can’t remember not being in love with travel!

N: Nicest hotel you’ve stayed in:

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with hotels, as I both grew up in one, and then my corporate existence required me to live in one for around seven years. But I can recommend Cousine Island in the Seychelles as a rather nice spot, since you asked.

O: Obsession—what are you obsessed with taking pictures of while traveling?:

Landscapes. And reflections. Reflections of landscapes are, suffice to say, enough to hold me for a very long time.

P: Passport stamps, how many and from where?

I’ve been lucky enough to visit around thirty countries across five continents. I’ve got quite a few stamps in my passport!

Q: Quirkiest attraction you’ve visited and where:

Any of the giant things in Australia or New Zealand. I have no idea what motivates the construction of a giant carrot or an enormous fake prawn, but it sure makes for some oddball attractions.

R: Recommended sight, event or experience:

Anything denounced as over visited, too touristy or not far enough off the beaten path. Usually there is a reason millions of people want to visit a place, travel fashion trends aside.

S: Splurge; something you have no problem forking over money for while traveling:

Beer. I love a nice cold beer at the end of a day!

T: Touristy thing done:

Lots. Watching the sunset over Uluru was a highlight. But there are so many great tourist attractions out there, and I have no shame in doing them.

U: Unforgettable travel memory:

Climbing the sand dunes in Namibia to watch the sunrise. Hiking a part of the Great Wall of China. Rafting in Costa Rica. Climbing Mount Taranaki in New Zealand. There have been so many incredible memories from travel that are indelibly burned into my mind!

V: Visas, how many and for where?

Having a UK passport is an amazing thing. But my favourite visa was my Chinese visa that let me travel around that splendid country for three months. I’m not sure I’ve needed a great many more beyond that, other than my work and travel visas for New Zealand and Australia. A great initiative by the way, and one I highly recommend!

W: Wine, best glass of wine while traveling and where?

Ah wine. I have a similar theory to wine as I do for beer. On  a hot day, you can’t beat a chilled glass of white wine on a sunny terrace with a view and good company. Generally though, I’m a red drinker. And I’m not fussy! Currently I’m in France, where the wine is both cheap and excellent!

X: eXcellent view and from where?:

This is like trying to ask a parent of quintuplets to name their favourite child. So many! I am however a sucker for any view with a nice mountain range backdrop, so New Zealand and California score well there. Also, the start of the Gibb River Road in Western Australia had an amazing view back across a mightly river flood plain and mountain range. The world is so incredible!

Y: Years spent traveling?:

This trip, which has resulted in a semi permanent base in France, started in June 2009. I don’t intend for it to end either – there shall be no return to a corporate existence for this hippy.

Z: Zealous sports fans and where:

I lived in England for a long while. They have football there. Probably enough said on that topic…

Phew! Thanks again to Sophie for nominating me! If you’ve got any thoughts to share on this long list of trivia about my travel abc’s, don’t be afraid to pipe up in the comments below!

Travel: my selfish pursuit

Travel is a rather selfish activity. By that, I don’t mean that travel is turning me into a people hating world destroying recluse. No, what I mean is that travel is something that really focuses on being of benefit to the individual doing the travel, in this case me, and no-one else.

Allow me to explain myself. I am just coasting over the hill of thirty, having spent a couple of years now in my third decade. I have a pretty tight knit group of friends who I have grown to know and love over the years. And because they are all running about as late with the whole growing up and settling down thing as me, many of them hadn’t, by the time I left, gotten around to doing the grown up stuff yet. You know – the getting married, having kids… buying a house… sort of thing that responsible adults are encouraged to get on with doing at some point.

Unfortunately, now that I’ve been away from home for nearly two years, things have started to change. Girlfriends are starting to put their feet down, and are pointing out that biological clocks don’t have a wind back mechanism. Marriage proposals are flying around like autumnal swallows seeking warmer weather. Tense negotiations are being held with banks about mortgages. And I’m on the other side of the world, far away from all of these things, watching all my friends grow up as I continue to wander in a vaguely irresponsible fashion, questing for something else.

This year of travelling, I am focusing on wandering the islands of New Zealand. The price for this wandering is missing out on not one, but three weddings of incredibly close friends. Luckily one of them had already decided on a small family only wedding. The other two had invited me to be an usher.

The main reason for missing these events is financial - the cost of a return flight from New Zealand to the UK is fairly mind boggling – and spending four months in the UK for two days worth of wedding fun at great expense just doesn’t seem sensible.

And this is kind of a problem with travel, at least the way I do it. I have no shame in admitting that I put myself first. It’s all about amazing experiences and scenic vistas that I get to witness first hand, and about pleasing and amusing myself.

I love my friends and family, but I have resigned myself to the fact that I’m not likely to see many of them for a while to come. Some of them realised this as I was leaving, when I was unable to answer the question of when I’d be back. Some thought I was just going through a phase, and six months after leaving I’d be back where I left off.

As it is, two years on, I have a lot more world to see, and nothing but finances to hold me back. Finances which I’m doing my best to top up by working as I go, which I’m clinging onto, and not squandering on dashing back to the UK so I don’t miss out on friends key events.

Long term travel, whilst a wonderful experience for me, does seem to carry with it the risk of growing apart from friends. It could be argued of course that these friends were always going to be lost – after all, many of my best friends are the ones whom I don’t see for months or even years at a time, and then get back on track with almost straight away. But the risk of being away for one too many key life events does gnaw at me somewhat.

Technology, the internet, Facebook - these are all things that help us stay in touch, to a point. This blog has even got me back in touch with friends who had drifted away from me. But it is hardly a substitute for real time together.

There is a balance I guess. A line to walk between ostracising myself and experiencing all that I want to. It can be a tricky line to walk, and I am yet to see what the end result will be. With luck I am not walking the line too close to the wind, and gaining experiences at great expense. At least, I really hope not.

I’d love to know what your thoughts on this matter are. Do you travel long term? How do you keep up to date with happenings back home? Are you missing key events in your friends lives that you worry will result in you growing apart? Or do you think friendships overcome these hurdles? Let me know in the comments below.

Encountering racism on the road

The thing about travel is the wealth of experiences that accompany it. We meet new people, see new sights… and are exposed to all manner of different world views.

Some of these world views don’t quite gel with our own. Some jar. And some are just plain wrong.

This was the case when travelling around Australia. Don’t get me wrong. I met incredible people. I had an amazing time. The whole trip was extraordinary in many, many ways. But every now and again, I would run into some seriously off kilter behaviour that just didn’t seem to fit into my view of what Australia was about. And that behaviour was what I came to refer to as casual racism.

Casual, of course, is not really a term that should be applied to racism, in much the same way that you wouldn’t say that someone casually raped someone else. It was just the way that what appeared to be completely outlandish statements, from my point of view at least, were just dropped into conversation, as if it was perfectly normal.

Much like observing the weather, pointing out that there seemed to be some clouds on the horizon, and then, almost as an afterthought, suggesting that some folks of coloured skin should probably be quietly poked off a cliff. And then back to the weather.

So. My trip around Australia. I use Australia as an example because it’s the most recent place I have been, although I am aware that racism is hardly a problem unique to one country, nor am I labelling all Australian’s as racist. (I can almost feel the comment box beginning to quake in it’s boots already).

Let me give you an example.

I was travelling through the centre of Australia, and was in the East McDonnell ranges. These are a series of mountain ranges near Alice Springs which feature excellent walking and remarkably pretty mountainous scenery, particularly for a part of Australia I had long believed to be flat. My knowledge of Australian geography when I started out was fairly poor.

At one of the campsites we were staying at, we met a middle aged rather jovial Australian couple, with whom we spent some time discussing a variety of topics, including the weather (usually you can’t talk too much about the weather near Alice Springs, what with it being sunny roughly 100% of the time), the quality of the local drinking water, and the high quality of the local walking options. Somewhere towards the end of the conversation, we mentioned that we were heading up towards Katherine next, at which point the gentleman pointed out to us that it was, of course, “full of fucking abo’s”.

I think the gears probably fell out of my dialogue engine at this point, and the many years of British politeness training kicked in to avoid the car wreck of the conversation that was suddenly happening around me. I looked across at my travelling companion, who appeared to be as flummoxed as I was. There were some mumbled “oh?” type noises, followed by some general nodding and bobbing of heads, before we extricated ourselves from the whole topic, and escaped to our vehicle, to wonder quite what the hell that had been about.

We had not, by this point on the trip, had much encounter with Australia’s original inhabitants, the aboriginal people who had been around as a culture for roughly 40,000 years before the Europeans showed up and, well, kinda ruined everything. And there was a reason for this. Large numbers of Australia’s remaining aborigines live in isolated communities – often alcohol free zones – which require entry permits to visit. One example of this is Arnhem land, which takes up a sizeable chunk of the Northern Territory.

Other encounters with aboriginal people as we travelled around Oz were fairly limited. We had a long chat with a fellow who ran an internet cafe in Katherine, who shared all sorts of stories and knowledge about aboriginal culture. Other than that, we just saw a few groups of people chilling out on the grass, or enjoying the sunshine. We couldn’t quite see what caused this somewhat overwhelming reaction from a minority of people we met, and it wasn’t something I seemed to be socially programmed to deal with.

Again, I should emphasize that this wasn’t a regular occurrence. But it wasn’t a one-off either. And looking back, I kinda wish I had some exciting story to tell about how I had been able to morally crusade around the country, righting the wrongs in people’s belief systems. But obviously, this wasn’t the case. Encounters with casual racism were brief and fleeting, usually because we just got the hell out of there whenever we could. I don’t believe I ever quibbled or argued against it. Perhaps I should have. Perhaps it wasn’t my place. Perhaps confrontation just wasn’t where I was. I have no idea.

I would love to know what your thoughts on this are, because I admit, this sort of thing really confuses me. Coming up against a world view that is so in opposition to your own, but then not having the capability or, perhaps, bravery, to face up to it and point out that it is wrong, seems somewhat like perhaps I failed in some way.

What, after all, is the point in believing in something if you aren’t willing to stand by your cause? Should I have engaged in argument, or was the quick exit option sufficient? Let me know what you think, and how you have dealt with similar situations, in the comments below.

Great reasons not to travel

I’ve been travelling for nearly two years now, but it took me a while to get round to getting started on the long term travelling jaunt.

It was always something I wanted to do, but at a point in the future when the time seemed “right”. So I would put it off.

The issue with this approach is that the time may never actually seem right, and suddenly you realise that the right time was at any point in the past.

So here are some great reasons that you can give yourself not to travel, and even better reasons why you should ignore them and just go for it!

Because your job needs you

I know, the company you work for loves you. The whole place is liable to fall apart the moment you get away. Why else do you need to work those long hours? Sometimes you don’t even take the vacation days that are available!

If any of this sounds familiar, take some breaths. No-one, whatever your company may tell you, is irreplaceable (scratch that if you’re self employed ;)). The company you work for will be more than capable of replacing you should you leave.

Sure, it may cost them some time in training, and they would rather not go through the hassle, but at the end of the day, a job is just a job. Your life, your experiences and your happiness should be your priority, not the bottom line of a company where you happen to spend the majority of your time.

Your family responsibilities are too great

I hold my hands up. I don’t have kids, or family ties that hold me back from fulfilling my dreams. But time and again I have read, heard about, and met travellers who are having an absolute whale of a time travelling around the world with family in tow.

Yes, travelling with kids presents a whole number of unique challenges, but it is absolutely more than do-able, even for long term expeditions.

You can’t afford it right now

Ah, money. It seems unfair that we spend so much time earning it, and have so little time to spend it. And yes, I admit, travel does require some funds to achieve.

But you can travel for far less than you think. Head to South America or Asia, and your travel budget will probably go an awful lot further than you might imagine. On top of that, there are countless guides and posts from travel bloggers who have been there and done that, offering you advice, ideas and tips for saving money.

If you are really strapped for cash, why not think about earning as you go? The working holiday visa scheme, for example, lets you work and travel in a whole number of different places.

If you’re not eligible to take part in that, other organisations, such as VSO, can help you get an unforgettable experience. Sure, it may not be all beaches and sipping cocktails, but it’s going to be pretty darn memorable all the same.

You may even have a skillset that is portable, that lets you work from wherever you are. However you achieve it, don’t let a lack of funds hold you back from achieving your dreams.

It’s too scary

I am told on a semi-regular basis that I must be awfully brave to do what I do. I’m not totally convinced by this. Anyone who has met me I am sure will let you know that I am hardly the gung ho crazy type. Well, ok, maybe a little.

But seriously, travel these days is easy. Anyone can do it. Millions of people are roaming the globe. Something like 100,000 55+ year old people are currently driving around Australia in campervans, the so called grey nomads. There is a destination and experience out there to suit every taste.

What the hell will you do when you get back?

I know, planning for the future is an Important Thing To Do. With pensions and all that important stuff. And if you don’t do it, well, you’ll be living in a cardboard box in your eighties whilst all those people who did squirrel away their monies will be dropping cold coins on your head, or refusing to buy your copy of the Big Issue.

Actually, I have no response to that. It may be that I end up on the streets living in a cardboard box. But that could happen anyway. No job is entirely secure. But these days, a career break of one or two years is hardly a resume destroyer. Many employers may look upon it favourably – some may even offer a sabbatical as an option.

It may be that after travelling for a while, you decide you want to do something else with your life anyway – replace the office walls with something a bit different. Who knows. Life is an amazing adventure. Don’t be afraid to treat it as such.

I’ve left it too late

Having spent all that time waiting for the right time, you have now decided you are “too old” to travel. Please. No-one is too old to travel, or do anything for that matter. Take Hugh Hefner for example. Well, ok, maybe he’s not the greatest example. But still. Age is no barrier to hitting the road. See my aforementioned Grey Nomads example. And there are plenty more examples where they came from!

My friends / relatives / pet think it’s a bad idea

Change is a scary thing. Routine is not. Routine is easy. Your wish to break away from routine, and make some kind of massive change in your life, is not only scary to you, it is scary to other people too. You are going against the norm. People will react to this, some positively, some negatively.

Don’t let what other people think get in the way of achieving what you want to achieve. Take their advice on board, hear them out, and then work out what you want to do with your life. After all, you’re the one who has to live it!

Well, I’ve gone on long enough. My point, I hope, has been well made, and it’s a point that extends far beyond just travelling. I’m not saying travelling is right for everyone. But if you ever find yourself wishing, dreaming, or wondering how you could achieve something, don’t waste time thinking of reasons why you can’t do it. Focus your efforts on making the dream come true instead, I promise you, it’ll be more than worth it!

As always, I’d love to hear your feedback on any of the above. Shout out your thoughts and feelings in the comments below.

The awesome problem

I have a problem. Well, it’s not really a problem. Ok, it’s a bit of a problem. The thing is, I’ve been travelling for a while. But even when I started travelling, the problem raised its ugly head. Allow me to explain.

I was in Australia, with my travelling buddy at the time. We had spent a few weeks on the road. We had seen some pretty amazing things. We were delighted with ourselves, and wanted to share how happy we were with our trip so far with each other.

Our conversations would therefore be peppered with happy adjectives, along the lines of “that tree was amazing!” or “did you see that 90 mile beach? Amazing!”.

After a few weeks of this, we started to get a bit concerned. What if the “amazing” tag wore off? How would we be able to differentiate between say, Uluru (amazing) and an experience camping under the stars in the outback, with no people within at least 100km of us (also amazing). What if amazing just became, well, the norm?

It was clearly time for a system to be put into place, a system with rules. Rules we would have to stick to. Some form of classification system that would allow us to differentiate the every day amazing from the truly amazing amazing. And so was the awesomometer born.

We decided that a scale was necessary. At the bottom of the scale was amazing. A lot of Australia is amazing, and so a lot of stuff fell into this category. This is by no means a bad category. Just because it happens to be at the bottom of the scale does not mean it fails to pass muster. This is a scale that starts at amazing, and can only go up.

After amazing came awesome. Awesome had to be something really quite special. Special beyond amazing. To be awesome, somewhere had to not only be a staggeringly awesome place, but to provide some sort of experience that we were left in awe by. I know, this sounds tricky. Luckily, Australia provided awesome in spades too.

The final category (I know what you are thinking, a three tier scale? That is barely enough! We realised this later too, and added descriptors such as “really amazing” or “quite awesome” as mini markers to keep ourselves on the straight and narrow) was Legendary. (We had possible watched too much of a certain TV series at this point).

Legendary required an experience to be entirely mind blowing. A once in a lifetime experience, never to be forgotten. Something that burnt itself indelibly into the mind. I classified one experience as legendary on the entire trip, (although the whole trip could be classed as legendary) and that involved a week long outback hippie festival, mud, and fairly liberal doses of nudity..

So a scale was born. Generally I was happy. But of late, I have started to feel that perhaps it isn’t the right approach. I may get a bit philosophical here. Bear with me.

The thing is, judging things against other things is a practice that is entirely common. Some people create top ten lists of say, their favourite cities in the world. Others become vexed that not everything we see can be truly awesome, and that as writers we must be sparing with our words. Praise should be doled out carefully, to places and experiences that are truly worthy.

And I’m not so good at that I am starting to realise. I find myself genuinely amazed and thrilled by so many of the things I see, that I must use words that match my delight. I urge you to do the same. Do not be afraid to share your enthusiasm for your experiences. Don’t worry if the tenth waterfall you see happens to be the tenth amazing waterfall, with nine other amazing waterfalls right behind it. Be delighted at the new and fresh thrill of every discovery.

Every waterfall, place you visit and experience you have is its own unique object, unique to itself, incomparable to anything else, and unique to you and how you experience it.

It can sometimes be a challenge to find the words to get that out, but I’m sure you’ll rise to that challenge. And if words don’t do, I find photographs to be a handy substitute. Thanks for reading.

Why you should travel with the WHV

Let’s face it, travelling can be expensive. Travel in developed countries even more so. Once you’ve added up the transport, the insurance, the food, the accommodation – well, the number at the end can be pretty scary. Even when travelling on a serious budget, if you want to see everything, you’re still going to end up spending a fair bit. As my recent article on the costs of travelling around Australia demonstrated.

And the thing is, we aren’t all in a position where our savings accounts happen to let us give everything up for a while and head off into the wide blue yonder. But that shouldn’t stop you from doing so. How, you ask? Why, with the wondrous working holiday visa scheme of course!

Before we go on, here are some brief caveats. To qualify for a working holiday visa, you usually need to meet some criteria. You need, for example, to be of a certain age, usually under 31. You need to have at least some funds, to demonstrate you will be able to afford to support yourself in your destination country. And you will need to be from one of the countries that participates in the working holiday visa scheme. There are a few more of these, but those are the major ones.

So what’s it all about then? Well, it’s pretty simple. A working holiday visa allows you to travel in a country for a period of time, often one or two years, plus, and most importantly, it lets you do some work whilst you are travelling.

And working whilst travelling carries myriad advantages, not least of which being that you will be earning money. So instead of sitting back home in a job saving up for your trip, you can actually be on your trip saving up for your trip! Pretty cunning.

Now you may be thinking that you would prefer to be at home saving up, and leave the trip for an actual holiday. And of course, that is your decision. It was what I did for my year long trip around Australia, where the WHV I was issued did little more than allow me to stay in the country for a full year. However, I believe that there are some serious advantages to actually working whilst you travel, which I will now go through:

The cultural side of it.
There is a lot of talk about “authentic” travel, and experiencing the “culture” of a place. Personally I’m not convinced about the idea of travelling being anything other than authentic, the experience you get is a reflection of the place you visit. Whether or not it matches up to your expectations is, of course, another matter. But to really get a handle of what life is like for the folks who live in the places you are visiting, to understand how the culture works, you may want to do more than just skim through. And getting a job is a pretty decent way to go about getting a cultural experience you are unlikely to forget. You’ll meet people and get to grips with more than the skin deep impression that travel can sometimes give.

Travelling for longer.
The world is a big place. But there is no rush - it’s not really going anywhere in a hurry. If travelling long term is something you really want to do as a lifestyle choice, then you’re going to need some means to sustain yourself. If you don’t already have some form of job that you can travel with, then temporary positions as you move around are going to be your best shot. There are no shortage of countries that take part in the WHV scheme, so you could keep going for some time before you hit 31, and then head off to the rest of the countries that you want to see which don’t offer the same scheme. Think long term, and the possibilities do seem fairly unlimited!

Earning money.
Money makes the world go round. Travelling can be done on a budget, but that budget has to come from somewhere. If you are able to earn money as you go, then you can travel for longer. Or, you can spend money on more experiences as you go, with less concern about how you’re going to pay off all those credit card bills when you get home. If you find the right role and get enough hours of work, you can pretty much offset the cost of your trip, plus be richer in experience. An awesome feeling.

Incentives
Some countries offer incentives to folks on the working holiday visa scheme. In Australia for example, if you work for three months in a designated type of work (usually back breaking fruit picking), then you can extend your visa by an additional year. A whole extra year for three months work, certainly pretty cool.

Downsides
There are, of course, some downsides to the scheme. Some of the countries, for example, place restrictions on how long you can work for one employer for. Sometimes work can be hard to find. It can be, on occasion, a frustrating and difficult experience, and often the casual sort of work you find can require long hours for minimal pay, so your dreams of saving up whilst you travel could be tough to achieve. However, with perseverance and optimism, you should be able to get something that suits your lifestyle and wants.

Just bear in mind that any major lifestyle change carries with it risk, and change is often uncomfortable. The benefits, in my mind at least, far outweigh any of the downsides.

For more information on the working holiday visa schemes, and whether or not you are eligible to participate, as well as further country specific information, this Wikipedia entry has all sorts of useful information. If you have any questions on this article, or feedback on your experiences with working holiday visa schemes, please comment below, or head on over to the site’s Facebook Page.

The “authentic” travel myth

Today, I’m going to tackle the idea of “authentic” travel. The forms that this take vary, from attempting to see things that no-one else has, to getting some kind of cultural insight, to braving hardships in the name of a more “real” experience. And I’m going to explain why I don’t think it exists.

This is because I believe, for something to have an authentic version, there must be a “fake” version, and travel, from what I can tell, is all real. Unless you are reading this post in the future and virtual travel has been invented. Do let me know how that is.

I could end the post there of course, but it would make for a short, if unusually to the point, entry.

Instead, I will muse on why the term “authentic” is bandied around so much. Why is there this strange notion that travel, to be “successful”, must meet up to this label, which carries with it all sorts of baggage and no real definition? What defines travel success anyway? From what I can tell, it all comes down to expectation.

Our expectation for the experience we are going to get from travelling is often high. Even before we set off, we will do all sorts of research as we try to build a picture of where we are going, and what we are going to see. Plans are made, itineraries are drawn up. And at this point, the pressure begins.

We want to make sure we are making the right choices. We only have a certain window of time to experience a place, and we want to make sure we are seeing all the things we are “supposed” to be seeing. After all, who would think of going to China without visiting the Great Wall. Or going to San Francisco and not seeing the Golden Gate bridge. Or visiting Thailand and not.. well.. you get the idea.

These pressures are put upon us largely by ourselves, but are also externally applied. The check-list mentality of travel is an easy trap to fall into, exacerbated by other travellers and even guide books. Pick up any guide book, and it will list all the must-see’s of an area. Talk to other travellers, and the conversations will be littered with phrases such as “oh, did you see so-and-so when you were in whenever?”. If you respond in the negative, you may feel that you have somehow missed out on a key experience. That you have failed as a traveller.

Once you have started down the road towards trying to “succeed” as a traveller, you may find yourself trying to achieve even more. Going to places merely to say that you have been there. Or attempting to see the “real” version of the place you are visiting. You know, the one that the locals experience? Away from the touristy bits?  And if we don’t try to achieve these lofty, usually unattainable goals (how likely is it that we are genuinely going to experience life as a local?), have we again failed in our mission of that “authentic” experience?

Feeling that you have failed should not be something you experience when travelling. Take some deep breaths if you get this sensation. Try to understand the reason you are travelling. Because travel, despite what anyone or anything may try and tell you, is whatever you want it to be and for whatever reason you want it to be for.

Don’t want to visit the key sights? Can’t be bothered with museums? Would rather chill out on the beach sipping a frosty beer? Or maybe your idea of travel is rebuilding strife stricken parts of the world? Whatever it is, do it, and be happy with your choice. In fact, you should ignore this post, and all the other advice about how to make travel perfect for you, and just get out there and do it on your own terms.

I firmly believe that travel is awesome. For me, it’s a chance to do so many things. To rejoice in the unfamiliar, to exult in the new. To eat different food and try out different drinks. To get a glimpse of how others live. There’s goggling at spectacular scenery, and admiring people as they go about their lives. Wandering around supermarkets trying to make sense of the labels. Coming to the realisation that the world is not a static zoo on display for cultural enrichment - it’s a living, breathing, evolving place, and it’s all authentic, just waiting for you to join in and take part.

Don’t belittle others for failing to have seen what you believe to be “the essentials”. Love their stories, share your own. Don’t be upset if things don’t go to quite to plan, or you discover that you aren’t the only one who read the guidebook advice about the little village off the beaten track with no tourists. Celebrate the unique moments, and ignore the folks who validate their experiences by casting yours in a negative light.

Most of all, don’t worry about whether or not you are having an “authentic” experience. Just enjoy it all, for what it is, and you’ll have a trip you’ll never forget.

Well, that’s what I feel anyway. Do you feel at all pressured when travelling? Or that you should be getting more from your experiences? Let me know your thoughts on the whole authentic travel thing in the comments below!