How to be a happy traveler

Andy Hill

In the past several years I have learned some of the basic things that are essential for travelling well and being baptized by the divine folly of the universe

I have seen and experienced enough instances of potentially damning situations that can ruin a travel experience, and I think that there is a rather simple way to make sure that it almost never happens. This takes a little inner work, and can be even by viewed as an approach to life in general.

Ditch the guide book

Information is the most important thing in the universe, in a sense, but you don’t need to know all of the places that have a happy hour in a small town in northern Thailand before you get there. Those are the kinds of things you find out about after you wander around the place. Don’t go expecting someone else’s experience: ditch the guidebook, explore, talk to other people, and travelling will be a much more enjoyable experience. It is important to know about recent political history as well as basic characteristics of the culture, but learning where ‘the best shit’ is will never actually happen when being led around by the nose with a Lonely Planet.

Try to be a neophile

Robert Anton Wilson once said that humans were of two basic groups; neophobes, or those afraid of the new and the strange, and neophiles, those who are energized by and drawn to it. When traveling to other countries you will see the different ways that other people eat, go to the bathroom, and use the resources around them. This is a fantastic way to understand one’s own habits and learned worldviews, and provides a powerful opportunity for evolution. There may be a lizard that lives on your ceiling and shits on your bed every day, but learning to think of it fondly is an internal journey worth taking.

Don’t be a dick

Nobody ever got anywhere by being a dick, and this is much more the case in Asian countries than many in the west. Blowing up at someone or showing anger is seen as extremely poor form in many parts of the world, and a goofy smile will always get you nearly anywhere you need to go. Showing a common courtesy, respect, civility, and a natural curiosity towards others will find you friends for life in many parts of the world, and giving the curious abroad a refined display of what ‘your people’ really are like is never a bad idea.   

This all leads to the glorious phenomenon when we all realize that people everywhere are “the same in so many different ways,” or “different in so many similar ways.”

And it never hurts to learn how to say ‘thank you’ and ‘how are you,’ and also the respectful terms for people. People like it when you know how to correctly call them brother, uncle, aunt, sister or friend in their own language.

So, just ditch the guidebook, embrace the strange with playful willingness, engage all as if you’re speaking to your grandmother, and learn how to say ‘thank you.’  Those, in my opinion, are the most important things for being a happy traveler.