Eat Sleep & Hit the Road
The Traveler's Daily LifeThis section takes you beyond hotels, buses, and cafes, to give you a better idea of what the rest of the traveler's life is really like. It talks about sightseeing, planning, everyday chores, mail, staying clean, and relaxing. I will give you some tips on how to make these activities easier and more enjoyable. Shopping and Bargaining, and Bureaucratic Chores have separate sections all their own, as well as a section about The People You Will Meet.
For those of you who just dropped in, my Travel Tips focus mainly on long-term travel in the Third World. But you will find a few notes here to help you in planning for and surviving any trip.
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Life under Glimpses of the
Road,
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Hey, travel is hard work; don't let anybody tell you differently. People often ask me, "What do you do out there all that time?" I have a hard time remembering, because even the simple things -- making a telephone call, buying a train ticket, or doing the laundry -- can take most of a day. Getting a visa or airplane ticket will normally take several days.
Yes, there is plenty of time for leisure, or at least there should be. In addition to finding the basic food, lodging, and transportation, you can spend a great deal of your time sightseeing. Sometimes it hardly leaves time for your daily chores, let alone leisure.
Eat, Sleep, and Hit the Road
These are the traveler's main jobs. (The rest of course is pure pleasure.) Not only do you spend much of your time finding and utilizing hotels, cafes, and transportation, but in theory, you could do absolutely nothing else on a trip. The faster you travel, the closer you will come to this theoretical absurdity.The focus of this section on Daily Life is what you do with all the rest of your time when you're not doing these three main jobs. But first I'll give you the flavor of day when traveling, eating, and sleeping are your only chores. A thorough discussion of getting around on public transport is found in a separate section on Transportation, and tips on finding hotels and food are yet to be written up.
A work day is what I call a day of actual traveling -- moving on. You need to perform all of your traveler's basic jobs. You have to pack your bag (again!) You make sure you have the right amount of money in your wallet, that everything you will need on the bus is in your valuables bag. You check that your guide book or maps will be handy when you arrive. You make a physical check for your money pouch, your valuables bag, your camera. Did your toilet bag get into the pack? You look under the bed, in the drawers, under the covers.
You head to the bus station, find your bus, grab a seat, and stash your bag in a safe place. You ride like hell for hours until your teeth hurt. You make sure you get off at the right place, then take your bearings and head for the cheap hotel district. You find a hotel, size up a room, check the locks. You sign in, pay in advance, wash up, and hit the streets. You wander around for a while, checking out the new town while you look for a decent place to eat. If you're lucky, you sit down to a good meal and maybe even a cold beer. Ahhh, Life on the Road, there's nothing like it!
For the sake of simplicity, I have left out a lot of wonderful and frustrating details, but you get the picture. Sometimes it's fun, or at least damned exciting, but it is also tiring, mentally and physically. If you do this once or twice a week, it's an adventure. If you do it every day or two, it will kill you within two months!
One of my unwritten rules in to never spend less than two nights in one town. (By the way, this is a good rule when choosing a guided tour, as well.) It's unwritten because I break it so often; but still, I keep it in mind. A travel day is a work day, and too many in a row is very hard work indeed. Frankly, I don't like walking around with a rucksack; I want to get it off my back and leave it there for awhile!
When you stay only one night, you have no time to unpack, let alone rest up a bit or look around. You find a hotel, wash up, check out your next bus, maybe have time to take a few photos of a local sight, find a meal, do some planning for the next day, and go to sleep. When do you have time for a Daily Life?
Yes, there will be towns where you won't care to do much else, but some people travel like this all the time! You can do it for a week or two, but it wears you down very quickly. I have often broken a long journey by spending a couple of nights at some small town along the way. Sometimes they aren't worth much more than a rest day around the hotel -- but you won't know how charming that unknown town might be unless you take the time to look around.
Yes, sightseeing is tourist work, but it's got to be done. Someone has to go out there and send those postcards home. Go to this work prepared with whatever you may need for the day. Bring a little food and water if you're headed for the countryside and take your normal emergency medicines and some toilet paper. If the weather is changeable, you may need a sweater, umbrella, or hat before you return. You never know when you will need a flashlight (torch) to look inside some dark place, so bring your small one. Don't forget an extra roll of film.
Most people get along better with good road maps and city plans and most guide books provide them. Whether or not you've already got one, visit the local Tourist Information Center (TIC) as soon as possible to pick up a good map of the local area and whatever other information they can provide you. The TIC goes by many names in many countries -- Visitor's Information, Visitor's Bureau, Information Kiosk -- but I just call it TIC for short. If you get to a town with no TIC -- congratulations! -- you've finally gotten off of the beaten track. Start asking around.
The TIC
Some TIC's are useless, but you can usually get some kind of map. Others are amazing fonts of information. They may give you mimeographed(!) information about local cultural events and attractions. They should be able to point out on your map most of the places you will need to visit for business (banks and embassies) as well as sightseeing, and tell you how to get there, so ask them about every place you may have to go. Bus stations and embassies, for example, have a nasty habit of changing locations every few years; or there may be five bus stations, for different directions. Also ask about the urban bus routes you will need to use; it can take a week to learn this on your own. They might even give you a good idea of taxi fares. In modern countries, the TIC may load you down with brochures and picture books that you will want to send home. Some will sell or give away travel posters that you can't get any other way. Occasionally, they will let you leave your bags for a few hours while you scout around.
By the way, be aware of pseudo-TIC's at airports. Some of them claim to be "official" but are nothing more than private hotel booking agents who will only put you into the hotels they want. You can usually do better on your own. Many countries have good TIC's at the airport, but you may have to walk past several places claiming to be "official" before you find them!
The next good source of information is at your hotel. If it is a traveler's hostel, in addition to all the travelers there, the managers should be stocked with all kinds of useful information; just ask. Okay, you have your maps and directions, now get out there and see some sights. Armed with a good guide book, a full stomach, comfortable shoes, and a long day ahead, you don't need me to guide you around.
On Your Own
The most interesting way to explore is on your own. If you have a good map of the area, there is no reason why you can't just wander around by yourself seeing all the tourist sights and the ordinary people in between. To get the closest look at all that "local color" in between, walk! You will walk like you have never walked before, so get used to it and make it a part of your sightseeing. If you can't walk very far, maybe you need better shoes. If you are footloose and fancy-free, you can walk around all day and not even worry that you didn't get to any of the major tourist spots. Walking gives you the opportunity to stop and enjoy the little spots that take your fancy -- a quaint tea house, a local fruit market, a cobbler's shop, or a game of 'futbol' in the sidestreets.
There are really very few countries in the world where you cannot walk just about anywhere and everywhere in the daytime, and most places after dark. You don't have to worry much about getting into a "bad" neighborhood, or even about getting lost. In fact, getting lost in some of the vast and exotic bazaars and old cities of the world is one of the best times you can have! As long as you know where you want to return to (don't forget the name and address of your hotel!), someone will help you find your way out when you finally get tired.
Lunch
Some people seem to spend half their day looking for a good place to eat lunch. Don't expect to find a "good" lunch wherever you happen to be during the day. In the city, there will be plenty of passable eateries, but in the countryside you can spend an hour going out of your way to find a cafe where you don't like the food. So eat a good breakfast and take along some biscuits and fruit to keep you going. Or lay in a supply of your favorite street food or a hard-boiled egg before leaving the town. You can often get some coffee or a Coke to fortify you until dinner time. I repeat, eat a good breakfast that will keep you going, then just don't think about food unless it presents itself. Most of the world lives, cradle to grave, on one or two meals a day; you can do it too, so find out what it's like.
Guides
Occasionally you will be offered the services of a guide. They are just local people who may or may not know a great deal about their home town. Many guides work only inside of specific sights such as temples or castles. They should be able to provide you with lots of detailed information and historical background (some of it true), in English you can understand. Or they may just be some kids who will take you from one room to another and tell you little more than "king's room; queen's room". If you think you might benefit from a guide, talk to him (or rarely her) for a few minutes to get an idea of how much English he really speaks, how well you can understand each other, and of course, the price. If you find a couple of wonderful guides, you will want to try more; if you get a few rip-off merchants, you will begin to avoid them altogether.
Then there are people who offer to be your general guide around town. Sometimes it is a boy from your hotel, or a rickshaw or taxi driver. Taxis may give you a very cheap ride to your hotel, in hopes of talking you into a full-day taxi-tour the next day; even if you say no, they may show up the next morning waiting for you! A taxi-tour can be incredibly cheap by First World standards, and at the same time incredibly expensive by Third World standards.
Again, whether or not you choose to use guides may depend on your previous experiences. Some guides are a waste of time and money while others are not only friendly but take quite good care of you. Most often, their main service is taking you from one place to another, not providing any factual information. In the city, you will be able to get everywhere on your own, one way or another. But if you are in a hurry, a taxi will get you there faster and can also take you to distant sites that would be difficult to reach on your own. If you think that is a good deal, then bargain with them carefully.
In the countryside, you may occasionally need a guide just to show you the route through the forest, or up the mountain, to keep from getting lost in the wilderness. Local children may offer to show you the way for a small price. You can't know ahead of time how easy it will be to get lost, so try to get this information from other travelers before you start out. If you can't find anyone who has already been where you want to go, you have become an intrepid traveler indeed!
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