PHILOSOPHY OF TRAVEL
In retirement, as in life, we all travel different paths. Everyone seems to have their own plan. Surprisingly, I don’t meet anyone with a plan similar to mine. Some stay in their hometowns all year taking a few vacations rarely longer than a month at a time and some travel full time. Some travel to the same place every year or go to different places but stay in one place for long periods. Some have fifth wheels, large motorhomes, trailers, vans or VW campers. Some backpack and stay in hostels. Some travel alone while others like the security of traveling with others. We all make choices. The more I travel, the happier I am with the choices I have made. With only twenty years to see the world, I would ideally like to travel full time as there is so much to see. I want to be always going to someplace different and only want to go to that place once, so try to explore wherever I go intensively.
Type of RV.
When traveling in North America, a truck and camper is ideal for my style of travel because of its great mobility. Campers are much safer especially on these narrow roads. I can park anywhere and often stay close to the action. My camper has everything in it I could desire and I can take bicycles and kayaks with me. I would not get an RV with slides because of the weight and I don’t need the extra floor space to dance. I can drop the camper and explore 4WD roads. A well-designed solar system is ideal and allows me to dry camp and avoid campgrounds. Having a well functioning source of electricity is key to the modern RV as every appliance (refrigerator, heater, water heater) has an electric ignition. Sirius satellite radio (hard wired in both the truck and camper) is my lifeline to home and the world and my major source of entertainment. CBC (all the world class interviewers are a joy), NPR (National Public Radio in the US) and BBC are my mainstays. I don’t watch TV at home so don’t miss it here. I avoid travel with any other vehicles as what you do would be dictated by someone else. Your main social interaction would be with the same people instead of the whole variety of other travelers and the local population. Forcing yourself to interact is one of the keys to a complete traveling experience. The only negative is being alone to share your experiences with and mealtimes are the most difficult.
Vagabonding.
There is a difference between a tourist and a traveler. Vagabonding describes a traveler best. Timetables are not fixed, and reservations are rarely made more than a few days in advance. Some of my most frustrating times on the road have been when I had to follow a fixed time line. When I wanted to go to Brazil, the visa required an exit ticket out of the country. This forced me to figure out my entire itinerary and buy my ticket exiting the country. Of course circumstances often determine what kind of travel you can do. If still working and with a limited time frame, one must often go on guided trips or book all accommodation and transportation before hand. Unfortunately many tourists feel insecure if all those arrangements are not made before leaving home – how restrictive and more expensive. Lack of money may prevent one from going to some of the premier destinations. I am always surprised at many young travelers who miss the best places. Claiming that they had traveled to country X, their only experience may have been one month on the same beach. Since being retired, I have an unlimited amount of time to travel. I had initially hoped that I had at least 15 good years to see the world. Wherever I go, I want to see everything (which of course is not possible) as I do not think I have the luxury of being able to go back to many places a second time. There are some places I rarely go to. For example, I see little attraction in beaches. Swimming is often dangerous because of undertow. How much time can actually be spent in the water? I can’t tolerate lying in the sun for long. We are now so conscious of excessive sun exposure – sun tanning just doesn’t make sense and having to apply sunscreens on your whole body is unpleasant for me. I do make exceptions for oceans with good snorkeling or diving experiences.
Fear.
I am always surprised how some peoples lives are fear based – from their religion (Christianity is a very fear based religion – you will go to hell if you sin), the way you raise your children (attachment parenting, a recent style of parenting believes that your child will suffer brain damage if they are allowed to cry!), some people would never hike because of fear of bears, a rare occurrence, to the where they travel. Some of the best places in the world do have dangers. My favorite country to travel to is Mexico which is presently undergoing a wave of drug based violence. But that is drug cartels killing people in other cartels or politicians and newspaper journalists whose goal is to control their behavior. Rarely are tourists affected and you would have to be in the wrong place at the wrong time to be affected. I have a lot of sympathy for that nation as tourism has been severely affected. Unfortunately some travel insurance is actually invalidated if one travels there and some countries (especially the US) issue travel advisories. These tourists are missing one of the best cultures anywhere and one of the best cuisines on the planet. Of course one must be careful and show common sense wherever you go. Fear prevents people from enjoying the best experiences. People incorrectly evaluate risk. For example they rarely think about traveling in a car, one of the most dangerous things we do.
Itinerary and time frame.
Before a trip I buy the Lonely Planet for the area, read it and hi-light the book making brief notes on all the places I want to see. From then on the trip is planned on a day to day basis. With no set plans, one has the option to spend as much time as desired in any one place. Other travelers often give many insights that change itineraries. Traveling with no time pressure is so nice – I can go anywhere my heart desires and spend as much time as I need to see anywhere as completely as I want to. Not having a return flight home gives me the ability to return home after I think I have done all I want to.
Traveling with others.
I have also made the decision to travel alone. There are pluses and minuses but the ability to make all your own decisions is most important. There are not many women my age who want to travel for long periods (few people want to be away from home for longer than a month), take long bus rides if necessary, stay in dorm rooms (most usually want hotels not hostels), and avoid planes. An important quality in a woman is liking to sleep in a tent. I am not always the easiest person to travel with also. I still often travel with others for short periods. One often meets other travelers with whom one develops a good rapport and hanging out together for a few days can be great. It is always easy to break up the relationship and go your separate ways.
Hostels, dorm rooms or hotels.
I prefer to stay in dorm rooms in hostels. This is the best way to meet fellow travelers, which is rarely possible when staying in hotels. Despite occasional bad dorm room behavior (coming in at 4AM, turning on the lights and making noise), usually things are good. Young people don´t usually snore. Dorms are also the cheapest accommodation. The best website for hostels is hostelworld.com. Once you are a registered member, you save the booking fee and all your billing information is saved so reservations are easy. Each hostel has a rating and reliable reviews.
Talking to other travelers.
When traveling, to meet others, it is important to “put oneself out there”. Talk to everyone. You never know who you will meet or what you can learn. Make them the center of the conversation, find out what they are all about. As most other travelers seeing the world in my style are less than 30, I often spend a few days to a few weeks traveling with young people (as Germans are the worlds greatest travelers, and they are a very worldly bunch, it is young Germans that I spend most longer periods with). It is amazing how isolated some people are on the road. Language difficulties can be an issue. But some nationalities (Japanese seem to be most like this, French and Israelys traveling in groups seem to alienate other travelers the most) rarely talk to anyone even if they speak good English. I often think about how much they are missing. I believe that at least one half of the travel experience is in the people one meets.
Bus or plane?
I also try to take the bus everywhere especially when crossing borders as entering a country by plane often requires an exit ticket. One can be denied access to the flight (not rare) or theoretically not allowed into a country (has never happened to me). I have bought many exit tickets that I never used and wasn’t able to get a refund. Exiting a country by air often entails a fee at the airport that I have never had on a bus. As I don´t usually know my exact itinerary, or when I will be leaving, an ongoing ticket is not practical. Traveling by bus in the daytime allows one to see the countryside in a much more up-close way. Having lots of time makes air travel less necessary. Traveling in Central America, South America and south Asia by bus is relatively cheap and I can actually save a fair amount of money but still go on any adventure I desire.
Language.
Wouldn’t it be nice if one could have at least working travel language everywhere you go. The locals appreciate any attempt to use their language. However problems arise when they answer back. When language skills are rudimentary, understanding them can be more difficult than asking simple questions especially as fluent speakers talk much more rapidly, have a different accent (the correct one), or use slang. Developing even a simple vocabulary can be difficult. I usually find that when your pronunciation is not perfect, locals can’t understand you. As native English speakers, we meet people from all over the world with bad accents, we are used to it, and can usually make out what they say. As most of my travel so far has been in Spanish speaking countries, getting your vowels perfect can be difficult (likewise that is where they make the most mistakes). I sometimes get frustrated enough to not want to try speak their language.
Everyone has a different aptitude for language. It is well known that the ability to learn a new language starts to decline after age 12. Just like any other skill, each individual has different skill sets as our brains are wired in different ways – one of those could be the ability to learn a new language. Personally, I’m great at math and sciences like physics and chemistry, but poor at English as a subject and poor at languages. On CBC, I recently heard an interview with a 16 year old New Yorker who could fluently speak 23 languages from Farsi to Ojibwa.
What your native language is affects your ability to learn a new language. The most obvious example of this is the romance languages that have Latin as a base. Someone who speaks French, Spanish, Italian or Portuguese has a much easier time learning one of the other languages with a similar base.
Where you grow up affects language ability. Being raised in Europe where many languages are heard and taught in school makes it easier. Young people from Scandinavia, Germany, Netherlands, and Belgium, for example, usually have great English skills – English (and other languages) are often taught starting in elementary school as these ‘progressive’ countries seem to understand the important role of speaking English especially for business and industry. Clearly, knowledge of English will help ones career and job prospects immensely. In contrast, in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece, other languages seem to be not as important and the majority of young people tend to be unilingual.
Exposure to other languages over time can be important. Growing up in Switzerland exposes one repeatedly to German, French and Italian and many Swiss young people speak all three in addition to Swiss German. In Canada, we have two ‘official’ languages but when growing up in western Canada, like me, I have never had the opportunity to speak French since high school, and my French is terrible. My heritage is French Canadian and I am 10th generation Canadian, but my ‘French’ grandfather left Quebec as a teenager to homestead in Saskatchewan, and even though he had a French accent, I never heard him speak French.
Another significant issue is developing conversational language skills, another whole level increase in difficulty. Obviously, the ability to carry on a good conversation with locals vastly improves ones travel experience. The majority of my travel has been in Spanish speaking countries, and my travel Spanish is adequate, but my ability to hold a conversation with a native speaker is virtually nil. I have had 2 weeks of good Spanish instruction in Guatemala and have few problems asking for directions, finding a room, making a reservation over the phone, know dates and time, and handle money. I can even understand about 80% of what a tourist guide who speaks slowly and lucidly says. For me to acquire good conversational skills in Spanish would probably require at least 3 months of intensive study, something I don’t want to do. Missing even 20% of the content makes most conversation impossible. Because of laziness, desire, aptitude, and zero exposure to Spanish when at home, it is unlikely that I will develop conversational Spanish skills. I once had a girlfriend who worked hard at her Spanish and thought she was ‘pretty good’. But in a conversation, she was hopeless, and the conversation rarely went past very basic levels.
There can also be a significant difference in the “Spanish” spoken in different countries. Chilean Spanish is notoriously different. They speak rapidly with a ‘singsong’ lilt. Most s’s at the end of words are dropped and they have many different expressions not used anywhere else. I was lost there and had no hope of making sense of their Spanish.
Often having poor Spanish has been helpful. When being panhandled, no hablo Espanol, ends the interaction. When stopped at military checkpoints especially in Mexico (a common occurrence), no hablo Espanol, smiling and being pleasant, works great. They throw up their arms in frustration and simply wave you through.