When you travel to any new country, city, or landmark, it’s always so easy to just become another “typical tourist.” Hit the boardwalk, go to the museum, eat at the 5-star, climb the well-trodden peak.
And we can’t deny that some of those things are glamorous in their own ways. But, there still seems to be a certain spark missing in those wanders. It just doesn’t fulfill that romanticized sense of adventure that so many people seem to be enamored with.
Well, this simple trick fixes it all. You won’t wonder where to go, you won’t feel like you’re being given a cookie-cutter tour, and you’ll leave your destination feeling more immersed in the local culture than the millions of tourists that visit there every day.
Travel With A Theme
Instead of trying to see the usual well-known sites, travel with a specific focus in mind. Only go and see the off-off-Broadway plays or only focus on the contemporary art museums.
Don’t go and hike the most popular trails – only hike the trails that start with the letter R. Don’t go hopping through great review restaurants – only go to hole-in-the-walls that don’t have websites.
Your theme can be anything, just make sure that it’s hyper-focused around one idea that makes you look at your destination in a light that others who briefly visit won’t ever get to see.
If you don’t think it works, just visit a town next to you that you don’t think you know much about. Go to the popular attractions. Now, visit it a week later with a theme in mind. You’ll be blown away by the different feels of places you’ll get.
Instead of learning about town history in a museum, you’ll hear it from the old-timers in a speakeasy. Instead of seeing the view from the top, you’ll get to catch scenes from perspectives that the top was only hiding.
It’ll be – without a doubt – the most fun you could possibly have travelling. Because it’s just different.
Like a lot of things in life, travelling can become a sly place for complacency to take up residence. Travelling is meant to be something new, something unexperienced. Travelling with a theme is what truly gives you that.
Pick your theme, research what you can online (or, don’t, if that’s your theme), plan ahead, talk to locals, and get to living in a foreign place like a native.
Don’t just go places, go places with purpose.
