On a travel site I visit often I always seen tons of new travelers asking what book they should pick up for their trip or asking for advices on what they should do in a new country or city. Many other travelers try to answer with some story about this cool thing they did in this city once. Or how they think Europe on a Shoe String is needed. But I think preplanning like this will actually hurt you in your travels and here is why.
Books and forums are good for mentally traveling. You are asking for them before you go on your trip because you are excited to get started and want to leave mentally right now. You watch every episode of Rick Steve’s, Samantha Brown’s, read the guidebooks, and ask other travelers. But what you are doing is getting your travel fix before you actually travel. Its incredibly hard to resist I know. When I started my first trip I did all of this same stuff. It felt great mentally leaving for my trip before I actually went.
After one month of traveling I threw away all of my books and deleted the videos off my computer. These things are dead weight. What they do is they try to give you structure and make you comfortable with the unknown before you go. You can pick out your hotels, pick out the sites you will see, and even deiced on where you want to eat. This takes all of the unknowns out of your trip and eases your mind making it easier for you to take the plunge.
But what it is also doing is limiting you and what you can do. After you have taken so much time reading about and planning doing something you almost have to do it. You told yourself that you would stay at this hotel because everyone said it had amazing views. It’s going to be incredibly hard for you to detour into the unknown because you have tried to hide from it from the beginning.
As I mentioned I did this at first, maybe everyone needs this initial push to help them travel. But I soon learned that I had a much better time just showing up somewhere and just asking what I should do. For the last 11 months of my 1yr RTW trip I just showed up at my hostel and then asked the desk or other travelers what was fun in town. By doing this I had way more freedom about what I could do.
“Hey we are going to head out to X tomorrow, want come?” “Sure why not!” Most travelers operate in this same way. They heard from a guy that was leaving that they should do this, then they do it, then they tell people before they leave. You sort of pass on the experiences to the next hostel generation. I saw this in Marrakech when travelers passed on their favorite food stands and vendors to the new travelers. This place has great food, this place has great prices. You even got an introduction to the owner sometimes!
It’s an amazing system. Not only are you getting the most up to date information but you are also forced to interact with the other travelers and share experiences. Why eat at a place some book visited 2-3yrs ago, or at a place some guy said was good when he was there 1yr ago. You don’t want this kind of outdated information, a lot can change and change fast. The best thing you can do is just go with the flow. Travel is an adventure and its not an adventure if you know the outcome before it happens. Try to resists the books and forums and just let the trip decide things for you. Trust me you wont miss anything, and you just may find more than your book told you about.
