So you’re travelling to a new place and want to do as the locals do. Eat what they eat, go where they go and acts as they act. An oft espouse piece of travel advice is to act as if you’re a local, otherwise fall prey to scammers and thieves. While good advice in principle, it breaks down in practice in several ways.
Embrace Stupidity Stupid
Let’s face it, you’re lost. Hopelessly wandering in a foreign land. You don’t speak the language and you don’t look like a native. It’s getting late and you need to get back to hotel. There’s no point in hiding the fact that you’re lost in a vein effort to look like a local. It’s just keeping you lost longer. So be lost and look stupid already. The sooner you ask someone for directions the sooner you’re on your way. As a side effect of this you’ll end up safe in the long than trying too hard to blend in.
White Chocolate In Transit
It became very apparent to me that there isn’t much point in “going local” when I was in Barbados. The country has a very reliable and cheap public transit service so we used it as often as possible. The one thing the system lacks is a well defined schedule or well marked bus stops. So you can get on a bus that is going in the right general direction but never really knowing the right place to stop.
So now picture me, the only white person on any of the buses on the island. It’s hard to be a local when you’re the only person singing ivory to their chorus of ebony. I wasn’t going to fit in so why try? So I humbly took the role of tourist and asked to be dropped off close to where I was going.
New Adventures In Stupidity
If you’re not acting stupid you could be missing out on some great opportunities. Some true locals have an innate desire to actually share information with travellers to their lands. They are proud of their home and like to share it.
Not everyone is out to scam you. Of course, you need to be able to tell the difference. So taken an active interest in what true locals have to say, or strike up a conversation with a really dumb question. It’ll pump up their ego and they might be even more willing to share information with a truly naive tourist.
Are you ready to embrace stupidity yet? Well, I’m not actually saying be stupid, but just act it sometimes and you might be surprised by the results.
No Tourists photo credit: Seth W.
Bus Stop photo credit: martinvarsavsky
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Written by Journeyman
Topics: Rants, Travel Stories