Take a Walk on the Wild Side

© Flickr / Zach Dischner

Most guide books will give you tips on how not to get yourself in trouble while abroad. They’ll advise you to ‘buy traveler’s health insurance’ and ‘book your hotels in advance’ and while those tips might guarantee that you have a safe, predictable journey, they’ll also deprive you of the perfect opportunity for some good, old-fashioned danger and excitement. And isn’t that what we all secretly crave? If you wanted dull and safe, you would have opted to watch that volcano eruption on television and from the safety of your sofa and not 8,000 feet above sea-level and from the safety of your Guatemalan tour guide's donkey. 

As the ultimate adventurer, Christopher Columbus, once said, “You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.” That isn’t to say that you should attempt to sail solo across the Atlantic in a 15th Century Spanish sailboat, but a little chaos every once and a while can provide ideal opportunities for personal growth. Whether it be through successfully cycling solo across Beijing or out-haggling that taxi driver in Costa Rica, as many a world-wanderer can attest, there’s little more satisfying than the feeling of strength and empowerment that comes after diving headfirst into that tsunami of uncertainty and emerging triumphant on the other side.

So throw away that brochure to Club Med and take a walk on the wild side. Tour a Nepali jungle instead, if for no other reason than “This one time, in Kathmandu, when I participated in a goat sacrifice…” makes for a killer conversation starter.

The following is a list of tips on how to turn any vacation into a Columbus-worthy adventure. 

Don’t Pack

© Flickr / kthreadDespite what the title above may suggest, no one expects you to spend your two-week vacation in Thailand roaming the streets of Bangkok in the same shirt and sweats you flew over in (and for the sake of the people who will have to sit next to you in the back of that stuffy bus to Lampang, please don’t!) By all means, pack a few weather and culturally appropriate outfits, but just be selective. 

Because while retailers may try to lead you to believe otherwise, the only items you absolutely mustn’t forget to pack are: an ATM card, a credit card, a passport and an ample supply of common sense. The rest you can either do without or buy on the road, and, depending on which corner of the globe you’re in, often for a far better price than you could at home.

This is important to remember for several reasons. Besides the obvious fact that shepherding a herd of baggage from train station to taxi to hotel and back is certainly a sure-fire way to turn any adventure into a chore, combing the streets of Mogadishu for an electric razor, bag of marshmallows, harness for your pony or whatever item you may suddenly find yourself in need of, can actually be a mini-adventure in itself.

Don’t Book Your Hotels in Advance

© Flickr / KevinDooleySometimes booking a hotel in advance is not only unavoidable but smart, like when your plane or bus doesn’t arrive until two in the morning for instance, and you want to avoid hotel-hunting or robber-fleeing in the dark. That’s entirely understandable. 

The rest of the time, however, leave the reservations for the play-it-safers. Half of the fun is arriving somewhere without a plan and with endless possibilities at your fingertips. Plus, if you’re traveling alone or looking to meet other travelers or locals, inquiring as to the town’s best hotels or hostels is an easy excuse to engage someone in a conversation. And conversations with strangers in a foreign country (bonus points if you don’t speak the language well) are precisely how a lot of adventures start. 

Don’t Research Your Destination Ahead of Time

© Flickr / IhourahaneBuy a guidebook if you have to and do a Google-image search of your destination if you must, but don’t make the mistake of researching Kuala Lumpur like you’re an anthropology grad student with a looming thesis deadline. The simplest and quickest way to find out what sights are worth seeing is by visiting the local souvenir shop. Take note of what souvenirs the store sells and peruse through the photography books and post card collection. That should give you a general idea of the temples, museums or monuments you should make an effort to visit, but stay flexible. Talk to the locals, roam the streets and pay attention to which restaurants or bars seem most popular and visit those, as well. Because sticking to a rigid sight-seeing schedule or hesitating to visit a place that’s not in your guidebook’s ‘Top 10 Must-See List’ is precisely how not to have an adventure.

Don’t Be Afraid to Eat Worms (or Roaches or Snails)

© Flickr Steven and Adam KahtavaYou know what they say: ‘When in Mexico, eat the chocolate-covered locusts.’ Okay, perhaps no one says that but if you’re serious about having an adventure, you should. Trying exotic food (or at the very least, the national dish of whichever country you’re in) broadens the mind, frees the soul and…puts hair on your chest. (Two out of those three, anyway.) More importantly, stepping outside of your comfort zone and trying something new will put you one baby-step closer to unleashing that inner Indiana Jones that’s been dying to bull-whip its way out of you.

This doesn’t necessarily mean, however, that you need to gobble down an ant hill in order to prove yourself. Pick one thing that frightens you (whether it be bungee-jumping in Queenstown or karaoke singing in Tokyo) and make like the Nike commercial and just do it. You’ve already made the leap into uncertainty by travelling abroad, why not take that one step further? You’ll become a far stronger person if you do.  Because after you’ve conquered that JAWS-inspired phobia by snorkeling in a shark tank in Palau, asking a stranger for directions in French or piloting a mule-cart across an island, will seem easy in comparison. Face your fears and you’ll suddenly discover that you no longer have any. 

Do Leave Your GPS at Home

© Flickr / Jimmy_JoeMost people don’t enjoy getting lost. But that’s because in the real world, most people are too busy frantically trying to get from point A to point B to have the time to relax and enjoy it. Traveling is one of the few opportunities you have to wander aimlessly; to take pleasure in the nervous anticipation that lingers in the air when you have no idea where you’re going. Because as author Greg Anderson is famously quoted as writing, “Focus on the journey, not the destination.” Or to put it another way, what does it matter if you never locate that 17th century Anglican church if, while lost in some alleyway, you discover an urban garden, used-clothing store or funky graffiti mural, instead? Some of the best discoveries have been made by explorers who’ve drifted astray. Christopher Columbus is a prime example of that. If he hadn’t grossly miscalculated the size of the Atlantic Ocean during his voyage to India and sailed 9,000 miles in the wrong direction, he might have never discovered the Americas.

Do Ride the Public Transportation

© Flickr / Christian HaugenTaxis and tour buses are certainly convenient and in many parts of the world, inexpensive. But they’re certainly not breeding grounds for edge-of-your-bus-seat excitement. Buses and trains on the other hand, offer non-stop unpredictability, prime-people watching opportunities and more action-packed entertainment than a Terminator movie. It’s not uncommon, particularly in underdeveloped countries, for buses to break-down, arrive late or not at all, get hijacked or tumble down the edge of a cliff. What’s more, they’re often overcrowded. Everyone and their brother and their brother’s pig will frequently attempt to cram into a space that by American standards, wouldn’t be wide enough to rest their hat, never mind their family of five. It’s quite the marvel to behold, really. 

Do Travel Alone

© Flickr / fortherockWhile traveling alone in a foreign country can be exciting and extremely liberating, it can also be terrifying. Before embarking on your trip, you may wonder: Who will I eat dinner with? Who will watch my luggage if I’m in a crowded train station and have to use the restroom? Who will be there to help me fend off the stampede of dodo birds or swarm or billy goats or whatever crazed creatures I may encounter as a helpless homosapien abroad. I mean, London is a big city! Crazier things have happened.

The important thing to remember about solo travel, however, is that it’s rarely ever done solo. Sure, you may have arrived in Laos alone, but you won’t have to stay that way for long. Like ship-board romances or friendships formed among soldiers or trauma survivors, friendships made among travelers form fast and with little effort. While striking up a conversation with a stranger about which sandal brand they prefer may seem strange back home, on the road it’s typical; expected even.  Ask a fellow, foreign train-traveler about his shoes and the next thing you know, you’re swapping travel itineraries and email addresses and agreeing to tour the Louvre together. It’s that simple. 

Do Talk to Strangers

© Flickr / Ed YourdonIf you have the time, taking at least a week’s worth of conversation classes in the language of your destination country is invaluable. Because while ‘Mime’ is quite the international language and can get you through most of the more important day-to-day vacation needs (the hand gesture for ‘One more beer, please’ and ‘No, I’ve had enough beers now, thank you’ are fairly standard in most countries) Mime won’t help for the more complex conversations. It’s astounding how something as simple as a “Hey, where you goin’ with that chicken?” conversation you start with the man walking a leashed rooster in Nicaragua, for instance, can lead to him inviting for a free tour of his poultry farm and a feast of friend bananas.

Wrapping your vacation with the protective padding of a packaged group tour or all-exclusive resort might lessen your chances of being robbed of your money, but it also might increase your chances of being robbed of something much more valuable: the chance to push yourself to your limits. In a life embroiled in routine and an endless string of carpools, coupon-cutting and trips to the cleaners, there’s often little opportunity for life-enhancing challenges and if you’re not careful, life can become as small as a soap bubble and about as interesting. 

Don’t make that mistake. Go forth and adventure.