You are a Real Traveller if…

I got annoyed by a travel video on Facebook the other day. It showed a young woman dashing her way across Europe, visiting 10 countries in 15 days. It made my head (and heart) ache. The caption in the video said something along the lines of ‘my REAL backpacking trip’ and the gist of it was, if you haven’t travelled exactly how she did on the video, then you clearly aren’t a real traveller and should therefore feel embarrassed and ashamed of whatever you’ve called ‘travel’ because clearly, you were wrong.

So as a lovely Public Service Announcement. You are ONLY a real traveller if you have *done the following:

If you have stayed…

• In a hotel (privacy all the way)
• At an all-inclusive resort (total relaxation)
• In a hostel (meeting fellow travellers)
• On someone else’s couch (couch surfing is a great way to get a local level of knowledge about a new city)
• At home (your own city is full of unexplored parts and home is cheap!)

If your personal travel style includes:

• Flying your way through 6 countries in a two-week period
• Living in an exotic location for months on end
• Travelling by land, sea, air, foot, taxi, camel, horse, or piggy-back-ride

If you prefer to pack and plan:

• Weeks or months in advance, you are packed and every minute is planned and carefully dreamed out
• The night before you throw a few items into a backpack and make sure you have your phone charger and a credit card
• Plan?! What’s that? I don’t even have a ‘pluh’

If you travel…

• By yourself (rockin’ the independence)
• With a few close friends or family (girls weekend anyone?)
• With a group tour (let someone else worry about if your hotel is in a safe location!)

If you prefer to…

• Travel to the sun (beach time!)
• Take wintery trips (winter activities!)
• Pack light (carry-on, baby!)
• Bring all of your favourite clothing and toiletries (checked luggage exists for a reason…)
• Take weekend jaunts (three cheers for packing light!)
• Travel to countries that speak your language (there’s something to be said about comfort levels)
• Travel to isolated nations (reset that technology clock!)
• Travel to tourist-packed countries, cities or attractions (hey, obviously there’s something cool to see)
• Eat the local cuisine (have I ever told you about eating snake in Shanghai?)
• Grocery shop (cheap, and you can embrace that local lifestyle!)
• Eat at restaurants (you’re on vacation! Let someone else do the cooking and cleaning 😜)
• Get a SIM-card (let those folks back home know that you’re ok)
• Leave the phone at home (unplug for a bit)
• Have a day off every so often during a trip (guilt-free reason to take care of yourself, whether it’s a day in bed watching movies, or reading or having a relaxing bath)

(If I hadn’t been determined to save money in Dubai by buying groceries, I’d never had tried camel milk…)

…and likely more that I’ve forgotten and will add to as necessary…

USA road-tripping

* even if you HAVEN’T done the above, even if you have NO DESIRE to do any of the above. Even if you want to refer to yourself as a traveller for traveling for your bed to the kitchen. Who’s to say you’re wrong?

We all love to travel (well, if you’re on this blog, you probably at least have an interest in it…) and we probably all have our own way of doing things. And while we probably believe ourselves to have the best way of doing things, maybe we are only real travellers because we are open to new ways of doing things, and respectful of others’ ways of doing things. Maybe that is the only way we are real travellers.