10 travel musts

I truly led a privileged childhood. My mother, who had the perpetual travel bug, pulled me along on her numerous voyages around the world. I was her little sidekick, the tiny companion and in many cases the only one that wasn’t in her senior years on many of these trips. You see, she loved to go on these all-inclusive organized tours. Cruises that had stops in several ports with day trips… Riding a bus around Scandinavia, Central and Eastern Europe from Denmark to Moscow, passing by Minsk and Smolensk where my 11-year-old self was fascinated by the purple and green toilet paper. We crossed off all the sites, taking guided museum tours and palace visits, snapping a customary photo in front of each important monument. There was a schedule, an itinerary that we had to stick to; even our meals we had no real choice in, either. Everything was meant to pack as much sightseeing and to force-feed as many cultural experiences as possible into the vacation. And while I’m sincerely grateful for having being able to cross off quite a few destinations on most people’s travel bucket lists in this manner, it is most definitely no longer my modus operandi.

 Personally, I feel it is more about selfish travel — that’s where you go and see things, breeze through the must-do’s rather than truly experience and connect with a place. Most of the time spent away from the fixed itinerary and embracing adventure brings more satisfaction to the soul. Case in point, on this magnificent grand European tour, my fondest memories with my mom were when we decided to ditch the bus with all the oldies somewhere on our way to Berlin to go back to Amsterdam to pick up our sky-high tranny-esque wooden platforms that we left in the hotel and went on our own personal adventure hiring a car and driver taking us to Keukenhof with all the tulips in full spring bloom.

They say that travel is the only thing that you can buy that truly makes you richer. I say only if you do it the right way. Here are my tips for going beyond just scratching the touristy surface but how to make each journey truly fulfilling.

1. Don’t be afraid to change the plan.

Sometimes being too focused on “the plan” means you miss out on the wonderful surprises life has in store for you. When Jonathan and I were in Macau, I had booked reservations in this highly recommended Chinese restaurant over on Taipa. After walking around the dark streets frustrated, hungry and lost, we finally found the restaurant and, instead of feeling relief, we felt despair. It was dingy, messy and unappealing. We braved our hunger and turned on our heels with no real Plan B in mind. Wandering some more we come across a charming Portuguese restaurant — A Pestequieria — with red and white checked tablecloths, the best octopus, bacalao, peri-peri shrimp and lambchops ever. We went home joyful and inebriated from life and vinho verde.

2. Talk to locals.

Talk to your guide, the taxi driver, the barman, the server… And I mean really talk to them, don’t just selfishly ask for their recommendations but ask about their lives. Their families, where they grew up. Ask about their dreams and what they hope to do. Ask about the country’s politics, what they feel about their history and where they’re going. It was from Samnang in Angkor where I learned about how painful their Red past was but instead of forgetting, they choose to wear it like a scar, an homage to those who were lost; about his project of building a school to teach tourism English to the kids of his village and how popular Filipino movies and telenovelas are in Cambodia. From Ana and Lester in Havana some years ago, I heard about how they feared the inevitable post-Fidel era because they’re not sure what will happen next. From Rangana in Sri Lanka, I heard about the dynamics of the Tamils in their country and that apart from being an excellent driver, he was also a graphic designer. You learn from them and they learn from you, an exchange that leaves an imprint and makes them a little part of your soul, and this in turn makes your soul a little part of the world.

3. Read a book that corresponds with your destination.

This is one of my absolute favorite things to do in order to truly immerse myself in a place. During my trip to Sri Lanka, native Michael Ondaatje’s Running in the Family accompanied me throughout, telling tales of his family and homeland. His description of the crows that own Colombo, the steamy languid movement of ceiling fans and the delicious mess of crab curry was everything I was living in the moment. During a one-week-long trip on the high seas in Tubbataha, I read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Robinson Crusoe. W. Somerset Maugham accompanies me in Singapore. And the book that started it all was reading Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast during my first week living as an independent student in Paris.

4. Go to markets.

Skip the tourist traps and go to where the locals go. Look at what’s for sale in large numbers and you’ll see what’s most important to the people, how they live their everyday lives and what they eat… Ho Chi Minh is full of hats and hat stores, and women afraid to tarnish their complexions under the sun. Food markets are wonderful for discovering new kinds of flavors and produce like the beautiful Kumamoto oysters from the San Francisco Market in the Ferry Building; or the first time I held and smelled the intoxicating citrus sunshine of a fresh kaffir lime in Bang Rak market in Bangkok.

5. Take a cooking class.

Learn how to cook the local cuisine, learn the techniques, taste the culture. Don’t blindly follow instructions but ask questions, talk to the chefs, ask them what their favorite dishes are and what they like to have for breakfast. One of my favorite moments in the Maldives was in the Park Hyatt’s kitchen where I learned from a young Indian chef how to cook Maldivian tuna curry as well as the story of how he made it to the kitchen. I ended up cooking a quick Bicol express chicken and we all sat down to share a meal together with the Irish executive chef, the British marketing manager and Russian dive masters sharing food stories from all over the world.

6.  Never pass up the opportunity to travel for a wedding.

Weddings are a great reason to travel because not only are they emotional occasions, but the bride and groom often go out of their way to make things special. It’s even more amazing when you go to the hometown of one of the celebrants as you see how locals celebrate such a joyful occasion. I’ll never forget dancing barefoot in the fountain in Queretaro, Mexico to the sound of mariachis, a head full of champagne and Don Julio tequila and a belly full of chilaquiles. Or eating stunningly tender roast lamb with our hands, the warm, Corsican sun in our eyes, the world awash in cold rosé and love on the hills of Ajaccio.

7. Take the road less traveled.

I always do my best to find a way to see the sights with the fewest people possible even if it means taking a longer route or waking up extra early. Because moments like seeing the sunrise touch the soft pink stone of Banteay Srei; or being able to walk up and down the Great Wall of China without bumping shoulders against massive crowds… these moments are priceless.

8. Enjoy the voyage.

I love the act of travel in itself. Plane rides, bus rides, boat rides, car rides and train rides… Being confined and forced to accept that time has slowed down is, in fact, a gift. In this day and age where everything goes so fast, the slowness of travel is something I appreciate. Jonathan and I love to take the night train from Hamburg to Paris. We book a little cabin, pack up a little picnic and some wine, play cards, pass the long hours talking and savoring each other’s company with the rhythmic click clack of the rails in the background.

9. Say a prayer in spiritual sanctuaries.

I have always been fascinated by places of worship — temples, churches, mosques. Regardless of belief or religion, I believe spirituality is universal and I pay my respects by having a little moment of silence and saying a little prayer.

10.  Unplug.

There are much of my travels not captured on film. In fact, the very best moments have always been camera free. My husband always says to me, “The best picture we ever have is up here,” while smiling and tapping his head lightly. In an age of Instagram and the constant need to update the world in every moment, I feel like sometimes we forget to just live it. Live it fully. Melt into that serendipitous moment that the universe conspired to bring to you. The evening in the Maldives where we found ourselves under a blanket of stars feeling so far away, on a dot in the middle of the ocean. The moment we stepped into a clearing off the temple of Preah Tom in Angkor full of butterflies, feeling the energy of beautiful spirits, like they were blessing us. Happily intoxicated in New York in the Rose Bar of the Gramercy Park Hotel, oblivious to all the celebrities that were apparently there that evening. We were young, in love and newlyweds; we were the rock stars. Driving home after dinner with my family in an old castle in Tuscany where the food was splendid and the wine divine, and we laughed until they had to gently force us out. Still laughing in the car, our tummies nourished and our hearts full of love and the radio starts playing “Tonight, we are young…” Moments that have no photo, no evidence except in our memory and etched in our souls. Moments that become part of us and change our lives forever.

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For more on why travel is such an important part of my life, visit my travel-inspired lifestyle website www.thegypsetters.net and go to the “About” page. Also to go deeper into my personal leaps of faith and life-changing travel, from which this last paragraph is an excerpt, please read my entry www.thegypsetters.net/dot-dot-dot/walter-mitty-leaps-of-faith-and-the-moment.