Ten travel risks
worth taking
Travelling can be daunting, fun, exhilarating, life
affirming and bizarre. It can put you in situations you never expected and can
throw many problems your way.
It can also make you resourceful, wise, and canny and
enlightens your sense of humour.
If you travel and things like roughing, not knowing where
you are going to be next or what will happen tomorrow then here are ten travel
risks worth taking.
"When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not
designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people
comfortable" - Clifton Fadiman
Pick a destination on a whim
Don’t just go somewhere because
someone told you too or it is the fashionable place to go. Go somewhere that
you may have never thought about before. A place that maybe obscure and make
people wonder why you went.
It doesn’t have to be far flung;
it could be local or only a short flight away.
One of the silliest mini adventures
I had was with a group of friends when we went to Latvia. We flew out to Riga
before it was a stag doo location and the locals were not annoyed by the influx
of Brits.
Travel with strangers
Everything is accelerated when you travel. You may have just
met someone a couple of hours ago and before you know it you are travel buddies
and planning the next stage of an adventure.
Relationships become accelerated and travel romances blossom
for the short periods of time that people are together.
 |
| All bar to of these people were strangers before we all met in the Mosquito hotel in Krakow, Poland |
Most importantly of all you make new lifelong friends. No
matter where they are from, how rich or poor they are or what religion, race,
age or creed travel puts you all in the same boat.
Strangers travelling are like strangers meeting at a fancy
dress party. You both don’t know each other but you have something in common to
talk about.
I.e. at the party you would chat about each other’s
costumes. Travelling gives you the conversation starter or; ‘where have you
been and where are you going’.
Remember strangers won’t stay strangers for long and you
should have the guts to talk to as many people as possible when you travel. No
matter how scary or odd they are.
Eat street food and
drink the local brew
What are the locals eating? Does it look nice and appetising?
Does it make your mouth water? But are you too scared to sample it for
yourself.
 |
| Pigs snout in Seoul anyone? |
Also drink the local brews, they may be coarse and harsh on
the palate but they will do the trick and will also make you fit in better with
the locals.
Drink tea under a bridge in the Middle East. Sample street
food on the streets of Siam Reap, succulent chicken on skewers.
Or be brave and eat the street BBQ mystery meat! While I was
in Ghana, street meat became a staple of my diet. I never really knew what was
in it or whether it had any nutritional value. All I did know however was that
it tasted lovely with some pepper sauce.
Also in Ghana I drank a copious amount of apethishi the
local spirit. This stuff was so strong that one lad I knew who did seven shots
of it went temporarily blind for an hour. It was flavoured with roots and
earth and left to settle. It was an acquired taste but the more they fed it to
you the more it grew on you.
In 2008 I travelled with my brother through the Middle East.
I told him eat and drink as the locals do. Under my guidance and tutelage he
ended up in hospital with dysentery. Although I blame this on his stomach
rather than all the food we were eating as I ate and drank the same.
Remember always wash your hands and if you can sanitise
knives and forks to avoid ended up in a Wadi Rum hospital with liquid flowing
from your arse.
Teeth and tap water
Always wash your teeth with bottled water, avoid the taps.
This is the health advice which I have always been bombarded with and always
ignore.
It is definitely a risk worth taking. It has not done me any
harm….yet!
Travel the lowest
class
When you embark on a journey don’t always pay the full whack
for a ticket. Travel on a cheaper ticket.
 |
| Travelling on the back of a lorry in Ghana 2005 |
In the past I have travelled on overnight trains in Asia
where the beds pull out from the walls. I have also slept on the roof of an
African ferry which travelled up Lake Volta and then ended up ramming another
ferry.
When you travel in a class where locals and backpackers
alike do you meet the best people.
This also goes with accommodation.
Stay in the cheapest
accommodation
If you have a hotel room you are separated from other
guests. Sometimes you need the peace and quiet and the privacy if you are with
someone. Other times it is brilliant to stay in cheap dorm rooms.
You end up meeting some great likeminded people who become
friends, drinking partners and travel buddies. They are also the best sources
of book swapping and information gathering.
You can learn so much from other travellers that books will
never tell you. Where is good, secret places and the actual prices of tickets
and food stuffs?
Everyone who has backpacked will have good and bad stories
about dorm rooms. Coming back to the dorm to find strangers shagging in the
bunk above you or even worse in your bunk. But putting the smelly people you
encounter aside for each bad egg there are ten good ones.
My dorm room tip. If someone is snoring use a little water
pistol to shoot them. They soon shut up! Cruel but funny and affective.
Go to a place that
people tend to avoid
 |
| The sacred pools and crocodiles at Paga, Ghana/Burkina Faso border |
I was once told to not go to Chiang Mai because it was
boring. I loved it. I loved the serenity and quietness of the ancient city.
 |
| Wandering in Sirigu Mountain village |
Similarly I have been told that I was silly for going to the
Middle East or spending time in Africa. I ignore all these naysayers and go and
prove them wrong and discover what brilliant places they are.
Take a gamble and so somewhere that others tend to avoid. Be
one of only the few people to go there.
In 2005 I went with a German girl I was travelling with at
the time to the Sirigu Mountain village in the Volta region in Ghana. No travel
book gave it a mention but we had heard rumours about it.
We caught a ramshackle taxi down a long pot holed road
getting two punctures en route. Finally we climbed further and further up the mountain
into dense jungle.
We followed a well beaten path that eventually lead to a
clearing. A clearing that was dotted with corrugated iron roofed huts and an
open area in the middle.
There were no shops and no coca cola signs that you seem to
see everywhere.
Our arrival caused a stir and children ran up to us, grabbed
us and shouted at us.
 |
| No guidebooks will tell you about the 'Big tree' in Oda, Ghana |
Being new to the village we were summoned to meet the elders
who sat on a long old log.
Many had long white beards and some wore flowing
robes of fantastic colours.
They demanded why we were here and I tried to explain that I
wanted to see this beautiful village.
Luckily we had some apetishi the local spirit and after
handing it over we were free to explore.
If we had kept to the guide book we would have never seen
this gem hidden in the hills.
Talk to everyone
You never know who
they may turn out to be and brighten your life. Travel is like a party where
everyone has something in common. Everyone can talk while travelling because
they can say the old travellers questions such as ‘where have you been and
where you going’. Talk to the locals, don’t just set yourself up in a little
backpackers bubble.
One massive mistake people tend to do is go overseas and
hardly converse with anyone from where they have gone too. They lock themselves
in hotels and chat to other holiday makers.
Chat to everyone, even if they seem unhinged and a little
mad. Sometimes these are the best conversations!
Keep a journal
Take as many photos as you can, but remember when you look
back on them place names and people’s names will disappear into the far
recesses of your mind. Write little notes or keep a travel journal and jog
those memories back into life.
It has been scientifically proven that looking back on old photos
brightens your mind and alleviates stress. Therefore ward off stress by jotting
done who people are and where you were in a rudimentary travel journal.
Or go the whole hog and write everything that happens and
keep it for a rainy day.
It may be time consuming and sometimes boring but write
stuff down and you will feel better for it.
Haggle, haggle and
haggle
Haggle all the time. Do not settle for the ‘tourist’ price.
Keep haggling and eventually you will get the item you are haggling low enough
to consider purchase.
Places such as Souqs and bazaars in the Middle East, African
markets and Asian night markets are all worth haggling.
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