Tips for travel abroad

This is a continued advice column - read part 1 here.

I hung around Zurich for another year, never again openly whinging about the place, and earning beer money working for Veloblitz – a bicycle courier company. But I could always hear the advice resonating, of the steely blue-eyed Aussie.

It would take a few years until the next significant advisory was issued. This time I was in Southeast Asia and it came in the form of what not to ask the fellow traveller.

“I hate it when people ask me how long I’ve been here, or where I’m going” said the Englishman.

“Oh.. yeh… um ok,” I mumbled.

Moments before I’d just committed what I was now learning was a crime. I’d asked the same two questions of a Dutchman only five minutes before, and he appeared happy to answer.

“Two days … going north tomorrow”.

“Bloody hell,” I thought. “What am I meant to ask?”

Ironically, the Englishman went on to tell me about his years of travel and where he was planning to go. I was reduced to the odd “oh’ and ”hmm”. So, travel advice number three was out, be careful of your opening lines when addressing a new companion -- don’t ask, but be prepared to be told.

The next time I came across another momentous comment was on a subsequent journey to Asia, in the land of smiles -- Thailand. “Man, look at them with their guidebooks and cameras – don’t you hate that?”

“They look like tourists!”

“Oh… yeh” (mumbled with a nervous laugh), I quietly responded as I fiddled around in my bag to make sure my Lonely Planet and my new camera were out of view.

This time the advisor was a Swede. I’d followed the rules, I didn’t ask the sinful questions of “where have you been and where are you going?” And, I’d just endured a twenty-minute monologue of her journeys. But now, looking like a tourist was a crime?

After she left and then loudly addressed her male companions at another table with an over-excited “Hiiii!”, I took out my guidebook again to study the next destination, and proudly placed my brand new Nikon around my neck.

As I sat there reading, it suddenly dawned on me. It’s been fourteen years, and I still haven’t been back home yet. And, like life itself, the lessons never end.

• Hang out in large groups and move as a pack

• Be tanned, or carry fake tan at all times

• Have many tattoos, and ensure they can be displayed at all times even if this means sacrificing certain parts of clothing

• Twirl burning sticks and if possible buy your own to carry around so that others can see, and hopefully understand you, even when you’re not twirling

• Pierce as many parts of your body as you can (once again in prominent places)

• Join a yoga class and participate in interpretive dance workshops and talk about it none stop when next dining out

• Carry an inappropriately small backpack – the smaller the better and the more it makes you look like an experienced traveller. (Under no circumstances should you revert to a wheeled suitcase)

• Get dreadlocks (I’ve found those Rastafarian hats, complete with dreads, can often suffice)

• Last but not least - walk with an air of confidence and pretend this is not your first time away from home.