Since arriving for my first flight from DC to Asia almost three months ago, I have boarded and alighted a running count of 13 aircrafts , acquired 6 visas, traveled on three different passports (all mine, all valid), and have now proudly collected stamps from six different countries. In the most aggressive world-seeing spree I have ever embarked, I would like to shine some light on one of the most important lessons I have learned this semester: what it means to travel.
Before coming to Hong Kong, like many other young people, I had a romanticized idea of what it meant to travel. According to blog posts like 3 Reasons to Travel When Young and Buzzfeeds like 27 Surreal Places to Visit Before You Die, equipped with a passport, backpack, and an open-minded resolve, the world would be mine for wondrous exploration; traveling young should be the ultimate dream; and if I wasn't seeking to travel I wasn't doing life the right way. Since then, I have had my travel documents stolen, missed a flight during an international connection, and had my backpack lost in transit. Traveling: while perspective-changing, breath-taking and mind-bogglingly enriching is also devastating, lonely, and terrifying. It has dismantled almost every romanticized ideal I have ever held about what my experiences would be abroad and replaced them with essential survival skills for times when I found myself caught without a way out. Because yes, sometimes no quality of HD photography will capture the joy I felt discovering the 7-story toy store in Ueno, experiencing the serenity of Angkor Wat during a late summer rain, or shaking the trunk of a baby elephant in Bangkok, but other times the world is as cruel as curling up on the dirty floor of the Beijing airport in the onset of winter with your next flight out not due for another 10 hours. This blog post is about the reality of traveling abroad: the hard-learned skills it has equipped me with, the way it has made me understand the different types of traveling, and the importance of planning vs. research.
Acquired Skills: Between all my round-trip flights through Asia, I have quickly picked up along the way, innumerable valuable abilities that have let me have the awesome, as well as get out of the horrifying, experiences I have faced abroad.
Pack consciously: I have learned to pack for my destination and how that allows me to carry myself in the world. Surprise, sometimes tank tops, t-shirts, and cargo shorts are not the appropriate attire, especially if visiting palaces, sacred ruins, or Hindu shrines and Muslim Mosques are part of the plan. I learned it’s always important to remember that I am a guest in a country and those customs and cultures should be respected. I have learned that representing myself in a certain manner abroad not only reflects me, but the country I come from.
Map out surroundings: With technology not being very reliable abroad, the most important resource I had was my mental map of my surroundings. Before a recent trip to Kuala Lumpur, my companions had heard a story of a friend’s son getting into an unmarked cab being left in the middle of nowhere moneyless, clothes-less, and beaten up. Needless to say, this had, as one friend put it, “instilled the fear of God in us”. So when one cab driver took a sharp turn down an alley our second night in KL, we were able to quickly gauge the danger of the situation and make it back to our guest house safely.
Deal with language barriers: I have learned who and where to ask the questions I needed. Yes, sometimes I was sent on a wild-goose chase and it was awful and frustrating and sometimes I didn't get what I ordered. I learned to be okay with that and I learned how to keep asking until I got where I needed to go. 4 out of 5 times, it won’t work but 1 out of 5 times it will be totally worth it. I have been able to get by with English, broken Mandarin and Japanese, and excellent body language so far but having things written down in the native language also helps.
Figure out the system: One look at a Tokyo Rail map will terrify even the most seasoned rider of subway systems. Thirteen main lines in Tokyo alone, with an average of three different branch lines for each, four train types for each branch line, hundreds of stops and sometimes up to 13 platforms in a single station, not to mention maps ONLY written in Japanese. But slap that confused look off your face because every system has a logic, so keep your eyes watchful your ears peeled and you will find your way to your destination, just be patient. With my big girl thinking cap, I am proud to say that for a first-timer in Tokyo, I exclusively took the subway without getting on the wrong train or missing my stop even once. I saved a ton of money and experienced Japan in one of the most authentic ways possible.
Expect the worst: I have learned that assuming that “it won’t happen to me” is STUPID. Because that is the kind of attitude that will cause it to happen to you. Buy travel insurance. Make copies of all documents. Store money in safe places. Carry enough cash stored in different places. Leave it in the hostel/hotel/guest house if possible. The world is a cruel and dangerous place so the sooner I figured out how to prepare myself for this, the better equipped I became to deal with possibly the worst travel luck, short of being beaten-up, anyone has encountered so far.
Calm the f*** down and adapt: More often then not, things don’t go according to plan. I learned it’s important to figure out alternatives immediately (or figure out who to ask), make a new plan, and execute. Yeah, stuff goes wrong but if you spend all your time stressing about it, it helps absolutely no one. Most of the time, people who were supposed to “help” me were just in it for their biweekly paycheck and could’ve have given less than two flying f***s about where I ended up. So I have learned that the internet is a powerful safety net and to use it effectively. If I didn’t know what to do, I contacted someone who did.
Types of Travel: From Cambodia to Japan, I have found myself traveling within a large range of financial capabilities. In Cambodia, I could have eaten the most filling and delicious meal of my life for less than $5 USD while in Tokyo, I was staying in the cheapest budget hostel in the city, eating half my meals at convenient stores. I have taken trips with itineraries planned down to the half-hour and taken a trip on my own without a single plan at all. I enjoyed each experience in its own unique way and learned that there are different ways of travel, that each traveler has their own goals for what they want to experience, and when these different ideas clash it can be infuriating so therefore, concurrently learning that not everyone is a good travel companion for me. I have found that budget traveling, without any plans and taking culinary risks is my favorite. The trip I took to Japan alone has been my most exciting so far just because I could do whatever I wanted, whenever I felt like it, and for however long I needed. I didn’t have a plan and I didn't see all of the popular tourist spots, but it gave me the flexibility and open-mindedness to find novelty in everything I did happen to stumble upon. I hadn’t expected to find a record store in Shinjuku, shop shoe heaven in Ueno, or end up in the most impressive Christmas display on a rooftop patio in Harajuku, but this was what made it so wonderful! I believe that it was only in this way that I was able to feel like Tokyo had so much more to offer than just a tourist check-list, I got a glimpse of real life and still fell in love with Japan.
Importance of Research: Research is key, planning is dispensable. I cannot stress enough that if I had had the foresight to do even superficial research on Cambodia, I would have found that purse-snatchings were on the rise in Phnom Penh and this would have saved me three days of agony, around $1500 USD, and numerous trips to one bureaucratic agency after another getting documents replaced. It is important to know details about where you’re going to understand the best way to navigate the city, how to stay safe, plan the right budget and keep from getting ripped off. I am a student on an extremely limited budget but I was able to make an entire trip to Tokyo (one of the most expensive places to travel in Asia) for a weekend for $500 USD, this is including a round-trip ticket of $300 and lodging for three days. Do research, and make observations. I knew that 1000yen for ramen was expensive because I remember seeing a comparable place for 400yen (and Japanese ramen is delicious at all prices). It is unnecessary to make plans because as long as I had knowledge about where I was, I felt free to unleash and explore. Locking myself into plans of visiting tourist locations can be stressful if I’m trying to pack five activities in a day, map out the best way to get from one place to another, or coordinate around closing hours. Pick a direction and just GO.
I am still just discovering what traveling really means, but what I have learned through my brief experiences has brought me worlds beyond my previous naivety. Unfortunately it’s not glamorous, and most of my travels have been far from this. There is real danger and a very dark side to it, especially if you decide to go about it alone. People always say be careful, but what does that even mean? I felt that I was invincible before I actually started exploring the world but I have been incredibly humbled by my experiences here in Asia alone.
Anyone who is close to me knows that I will have a tendency to follow my crazy impulses to the end of the Earth. And yes, if you had told me three months ago that I would be booking a flight to Japan on my own, I would have believed it. But three months ago, I was also careless, fearless, and believed I was ready to take on the world. The difference between me now and me then, is the fact that my confidence in my own competence is now anything but false.
I impulsively booked my flight to Japan two weeks ago, and I was scared s***less. But I have learned that being able to travel is not about being fearless, it is about having the capability to deal with what happens when your worst fears become reality.
