Depends on the purpose/intentions of the travel.
While I feel similarly about much of my own travel as you do, it's worth recognizing for many people, travel (or at least some of their travel) is not about having some sort of cultural experience or broadening their horizons.
For many people, travel is simply about getting to relax on vacation in a setting they like that they can't get at home.
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Your average Brit on vacation in Spain is not there because they have any interest in Spanish culture or Spaniards. They're there because they wanted a warm beach and sun and couldn't get them in their home country.
I'm reluctant to criticize too heavily that not everyone traveling is always doing so out of a desire for cultural enrichment. I certainly am not traveling with any desire for that in mind when I go visit a beach in Florida or a ski area in Colorado as an American.
I'd add "tourists" as a third category, ranging from the one week family trip somewhere new to see the sights up to and including those racing city to city, hostel to hostel, site to site, collecting likes on instagram or whatever.
It can be just for work, or just to perform an errand for the family.
I second this. 2 months is the minimum amount of time per country, and 2 weeks per city if you expect to get anything more than a handful of good meals and a couple adventures out of a place. My better memories were all from places I stayed for over 2 months, and all have more to do with people I met than the place itself.
From that base, you can still do day trips and weekend trips.
This allows to alternate between excursion weekends and relaxing weekends.
I also agree with the "1-2 years" content above - I'd really like to see the seasons cycle through in any particular place I stop.
Until I started travelling with my wife (and now a child too), one main lesson I learned was "you aren't going to need it" - every time I went travelling it was lighter than the trip before!
I guess more accurately it takes a week to get settled in. Most of that time isn't about physically removing the stuff from the bags but more about where you need to put it and what stuff you might need to go rebuy and organize, in the new country.
How did you go about meeting people in the first place?
I know this is HN, but I do have to say: good luck! :-D
This is lower stress than trying to go to a random bar and strike up a conversation when I don't know the local language very well, and if you're staying long-term, it's a natural way to develop friendships with locals.
I highly recommend you give international travel a try!
Anyhow, good on you for living life :)
The first run through gives you a motivation to do something challenging and consider what you would think people want to do, even if its awks. The second, you take the learnings and reward yourself
Another thing I've found is taking a class - in my case kickboxing classes led to quite a few new friends.
I don't have as much courage to do that in my home country.
It's much easier "somewhere else". Whatever stupid thing you do, you won't meet these people again. It's liberating.
Did you speak the local language?
That being said:
One of the most interesting people I met was in china, and I'd say complex ideas were 75% communicated in english. Google translate or wechat translate supplemented the conversations.
One of the other people I met was in Korea. His enlgish was probably closer to 50% and complex ideas almost certainly required a translation app. Great memories though.
I would probably have a conversation mediated entirely by google translate once every other week or so, and google translate was generally good enough to get an idea of menu's or communicate to people with absolutely no english ability at all. Nearly all conversations I had in china were translated via WeChat.
Traveling made me regret circumventing the language requirement in college so much.
I can feel this. I did the opposite. Instead of circumventing the requirement, I studied 5 different languages, and then continued 2 on to relative proficiency.
This has been, in my opinion, of tremendous benefit in living on and traveling to multiple continents.
I had an advisor whom I admired who was competent in some 12 or more languages. I was so jealous. I guess I probably still am.
I would like to point out if helpful that in China our education of the English language is much more geared towards reading rather than speaking. Students are generally equipped with enough to read and understand given adequate time but probably not speaking. However regional difference also may exist (first tier cities vs second, third etc). I used to feel ashamed about our english level in east asia in general. But then again now I think about people in the anglosphere where French and Spanish are largely taught but no one would expect a large proportion will be able to converse in them :)
Agreed; almost everywhere, you can find someone who knows some English. The other time I realized who a privilege it is was looking for a second language to learn. There isn't a clear answer if you already know English. The English privilege you might completely miss is that, outside of China, the internet is English-first.
I promise my use of it was entirely descriptive and not at all a judgement of the person speaking it. I have the utmost respect for anyone who can communicate an idea in another language at any level. I see my self as deficient for not being able to do so and think of myself as lesser and a poor citizen of the world for only speaking english.
As a native English speaker living in Russia, it really made me realize how difficult and nerve racking language learning and speaking is. I don't consider my Russian skills "broken", just very incomplete; a WIP.
There is nothing that is equal in this world
Whenever I have a guide (either professional or a local friend), this is often strangely a lot of work. Particularly the tour companies I've gone with in China insist on trying to get me a Western breakfast. If I wanted pancakes and sausage I would have just stayed at home and cooked my own! Give me the stuff you like. I may not end up liking it, but there's a pretty decent chance I will.
I also don't get people who won't at least try local customs like eating cooked fish on rice with green tea in the morning, but there are plenty of them. These people usually don't do well in really different countries and complain and whine and compare to home all the time instead of curious observing / understanding. Real travelling, which is about learning and immersing and broadening your mental horizon, and not about conquering some beach with your ass is just not for them.
Others have pointed out that lots of cultures have this problem: I read a Chinese newspaper article a few years ago about mainland Chinese bring suitcases full of instant noodles to eat when traveling abroad.
But while there are certainly Westerners like that, I don't think they were the cause of my problem. First of all, lunch and dinner on these tours was typically "Chinese" food, but something which was clearly targeted at a Western palate (which was perhaps even more frustrating). I think ironically, it was probably people who did want to try "authentic" cuisine -- or thought they did -- who were causing some of my problems. My guess is that they had people say they wanted "authentic cuisine", but when given actually authentic cuisine, didn't like it -- it didn't taste like the "authentic" cuisine in the Chinese restaurants at home.
Secondly, it probably does help people to deal with the new thing if they have something familiar. If you want to try something new but have never been outside the US, "three genuine Chinese meals a day for two weeks" is really throwing you in in the deep end. "Western breakfast and pseudo-Chinese lunch and dinner" probably is a much better way for those kinds of people to experience something new.
They stopped doing that after the Boston Marathon bombing cause of the airport security.
One of the highlights of their trip to France in 2002 was in Nice. Their hotel was near a Chinese Grocery and was able to get BBQ Pork and Soy Chicken.
Five years ago they went for a two week tour of Australia from China (after visiting relatives in China). Every meal on that tour was in a Chinese restaurant.
I think it's more likely that they want you to feel more at home. I was visiting an overseas team in Bangalore for a week and the team took me out to ... a steakhouse. Most of the team didn't eat beef but they wanted to take me somewhere they thought I'd like. I was appreciative of their consideration but ended up ordering the chicken, felt weird otherwise.
Right, this is exactly the problem I was talking about! And to be fair, there probably are a lot of Americans who would prefer a steakhouse; and many more who want to try "real" Indian food but just aren't ready for how different cultural food tastes actually are.
But when you've eaten chicken feet a dozen times, and incorporated "century egg" into your own personal cooking repertoire, it's a bit frustrating to make your way to a third-tier city in China and be fed breaded deep-fried bits of chicken with a bland sweet-and-sour sauce!
There was a roaring trade in American coca-cola in Beijing because enough people wanted to avoid the local version. As a non-American, I couldn’t taste the difference, but the imported stuff was 3x the price.
Another phrase I heard often was an irate “This would never happen in America!”
And yes, the taste is different, even for Coca-Cola light.
I'm not sure if the corn syrup thing has changed in recent years or not.
Cornflakes are one of the easiest things to find in China. They're sold in local grocery stores from some German brand.
In many ways it made me realize just how good multiple cultures have combined to make my "home" food good.
It can take some doing in some places to convince people that you (in my case a Westerner) really are interested in their food, culture, etc.. Learning a bit of the language can help. I was happy to be able to memorize "ek paav bhaajee aur ek samosa aur chaay chaahie" and order for myself in Hindi, hoping that if there were any complications the server would speak English as that's as far as I could go. But people appreciate that a lot, even just learning "my name is, what's your name, how are you" etc.
When I said "my name is sequoia, what is your name" to a taxi driver they would sometimes say "You speak hindi?!" incredulously, to which I'd reply "well I wouldn't go that far..."
If you can pull that one off you will have got the best and mroe authentic experience.
I agree whole heartedly. I'd gone one further and add "become a regular". Get coffee/beer/food from the same place every day and consider enrolling in a language/art/something short course. It's amazing who you can meet over the course of a month or two - I met a bunch of interesting people including my wife.
It can also have a lot to do with nonverbal and body language–observe how close people stand to one another, how much eye contact if any, whether people greet strangers & if so how, how people queue, etc.. It took me a while when visiting India to learn that people don't stand on line the same as they do in the USA. I put my bag down in an airport line to get out a document, and as the line moved forward, people just started going around me, because I was not immediately moving forward with the line. In the USA this would be considered very rude, but in India (at least in my limited experience) it was considered typical–the line doesn't wait for you, move it or lose it. I got with the program quickly after I learned that.
And this should go without saying but don't display expensive or flashy things (jewelry, cameras, possibly fancy cell phone etc.) in an environment you're not familiar with.
I specifically wrote only in my comment.
EDIT:
Basically become an immigrant, even if it's only for a couple of months. Ideally don't plan your return, make your journeys open ended!
For that matter, I wouldn't get one here either, if I could earn the same as I do know as a sous chef I'd quit in a heartbeat...
What kind of jobs do you mean? Doesn't it look suspicious for a middle aged guy who looks from a different part of the world trying to get a job he clearly does not need?
To clarify, I don't feel above any job, when I first emigrated 12 years ago I was cleaning toilets and working construction, but I had no qualifications and I didnt meet anyone fun. I am also a TERRIBLE waiter.
I don’t think you need to worry about that, in more exotic locations you will be so out of place anyway and they will have no way to judge if you’re rich or poor. And in any case people generally don’t care that much about others.
And even when they do, just accept it, it’s pretty unlikely anyone will resent you.
Not at all. If you can find a company which needs or wants an employee like you, whether it's due to your language and cultural background, or because of other skills which you possess, generally they'll just be really happy that they found you.
In Europe, you also have many countries outside of the Schengen area, meaning that you can do three months in one then hop to another. E.g. spend 3 months in Berlin, then 3 months in Kyiv, then 3 months in Paris, then three months in Belgrade.
If you have a lot of money (hundreds of thousands up to millions), you can effectively buy residency in most countries around the world.
Other countries allow border-running to renew your visa, some countries issue longer visa's on arrival, etc, etc.
Mostly, this all depends on your financial means, which country you choose to spend a longer time in, your levels of determination, and the skill of the immigration lawyer you choose.
I've done three long trips quitting a job first (~20 months, ~12 months, ~6 months) and the first two had several month or more stops, and many week or more stops. A mix is good.
1. Try to stay in one place for a few months, minimum. If you can stay a year or two, do that. Jumping from city to city every week seems exciting at first, but it quickly makes everywhere feel the same.
2. To quote Lao Tzu, when your work is done, forget it. If you work remotely, actively disconnect at the end of the day. It's too easy to be constantly plugged into the English-speaking media world and ignore what's right in front of you.
3. Try to blend in and adopt local clothing, culture, foods, etc. Read books by local authors, watch local films. A bit obvious, maybe, but I've met many people who insisted on only eating Western food, reading Harry Potter, and watching Netflix while abroad. At that point, why even bother traveling?