tourist Archives - Kavi Arasu

Traveler vs. Tourist: How to Truly Experience a Place

Kevin Kelly is one of those people you take seriously. Not because he asks you to. But because he has lived a life that makes you want to listen. He co-founded Wired. He has written deeply about the future. And, more importantly for us today, he has spent over 50 years traveling the world. That’s half a century of airports, alleys, deserts, and detours. When someone like that gives travel advice, you pay attention.

Not all travel tips are equal. Some are practical. Some are poetic. A few are life-altering. The ones I’ve picked here are both useful and thought-provoking. They are not about checking places off a list. They are about soaking them in.

If you think travel is just about getting from one place to another, this might make you pause. If you already believe the best journeys are the ones where you lose track of time, read on.

Traveller or Tourist?

A tourist collects places. A traveller collects moments. The featured picture above is Dawki, Meghalaya. I remember the conversation with the boatman as much as I remember how bountiful nature is. It all comes together beautifully.

A tourist follows a plan. A traveller follows curiosity.

A tourist moves through a place. A traveller lets a place move through them.

The difference is subtle. But it is everything. It is the difference between taking a photo of a street market and sitting down for tea with the vendor. Between checking in at a famous site and wandering into a side street just because it looks interesting. Between skimming the surface and sinking into the depth of a place.

“Half the fun of travel is the aesthetic of lostness.” — Ray Bradbury

Travel Wisdom Worth Keeping

…..

From Kevin Kelly’s post, here are super special nudges to travel wisdom. Read the full post here.

Travel for a passion, not a place. Build a trip around cheese, jazz clubs, or ancient ruins. Not just cities and landmarks. You’ll remember that tiny family-run dairy in the Alps long after you’ve forgotten the famous cathedral in Rome.

Ask your taxi driver to take you to their mother’s home. Odd? Yes. But it works. You get a meal, a story, and a peek into real life. The driver gets to fulfill a family duty. The mother gets a guest to feed. Everyone wins.

Give yourself constraints. Travel isn’t just about where you go. It’s about how you go. Take only overnight trains. Carry just a day bag. Eat for a week on the price of a single fancy meal. Limits make things interesting.

Visit places that aren’t built for you. Cemeteries. Hardware stores. Small workshops. Real life happens there. Not everything has to be an Instagram moment.

It’s always colder at night than you think. Even in the tropics. Pack that extra layer.

Eat where the healthy locals eat. The fanciest restaurant may not have the best food. The street stall with a queue probably does.

Slow down. The best moments happen when you pause. The best conversations. The unexpected invites. The secret spots. They show up when you are not rushing.

Start your trip at the farthest point. Land. Then go far. Take an overnight train. A rickety bus. A long drive. Settle in at the most remote place you planned to visit. Then, slowly work your way back. Somehow, this makes the journey richer.

Buy souvenirs that have a home in your home. That intricate rug? Lovely. But where will it live when you return? If you don’t know, leave it behind.

When asking for restaurant recommendations, don’t ask where to eat. Ask where they ate last. You’ll get a real answer.

The Beauty of Travel

Bill Bryson, my favourite travel writer, once wrote, “To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time.”

That’s it.

Travel isn’t about crossing off landmarks. It’s about learning to see. To step into another world. Not as a tourist, but as a quiet observer. An eager participant. A respectful guest.

And when you do that, something else happens. You don’t just take a piece of the place with you. You leave a little of yourself behind.

So go. But don’t just go. Travel like a traveller. Soak it in.

(Read the whole thing. You might see travel differently.)

Wheels !

Travel begets a curiosity bug and a sense of looking at everything with new eyes. This is why I immerse myself into it. New colours. Different people. Oddities. Similarities. And the works.

While overseas, any portion of the slice of life over there that remotely reminds me of India is a moment for me to stop and gawk! I remember stopping at staring at a Bajaj scooter in San Fransisco for eons before the missus bared her fangs. Well, almost. The wheels of Berlin brought that firmly etched moment, back to the centre of thought.

If you come back from a European city, you wax eloquence on a few things. One of them is ‘wheels’. Of Course there are some fantastic cars that you only heard some millionaire buy in India or have seen it strike your eye as it negotiated an auto rickshaw. A chauffeur driven sports car, the point of which you never ever understood like the many the impervious heights ‘upscale living’ always scaled. Such cars were aplenty in Berlin. Of course, none chauffeur driven. They didn’t appeal to me.

The cycles did. It is a common sight to see so many people on them and it is indeed a sight to see them tethered to the lamppost. It didn’t strike me for long that they didn’t come with a ‘stand’ as they are called in india. So, if you didn’t have a stand, well, you basically slept!

Much as I was marvelling at the ‘bikes’ in the same ‘stop and gawk’ mode, I got introduced to the ‘Cobis’ or the conference bikes. You can find more details here. It is many people pedalling the same bike. The moment I saw it for the first time, the utilitarian value of the cool tool stood with a swagger of sorts.

“They use it at the Google campus”, I heard a lady tell her male companion with a thick British accent, as I trained on the lens on the Cobi. “Fantastic dear”, I heard him say. I didn’t know if the fantastic was for the concept of the COBI or for the astuteness of the general awareness of the lady in his hand. That will remain forever elusive, but I must say, his English was impeccable.

Filled to the brim with excitement, the camera strained at the impetuous clicking that it was getting http://healthsavy.com/product/valtrex/ subjected to. Then, I saw these rickshaws. You see the rickshaws are dear to me. For several years, they ferried me to school. It was a such a sight to see the rickshaws do their rounds in Berlin. Only that the rickshaws took a different hue.

A different shape and were motor assisted. Every single thing that is wrong with the rickshaws of small town India seemed to have been set right by the Germans (Heres an earlier blogpost on the Indian version, and you will see reason to my penchance). The passenger area was like a business class seat (well, I know that is stretched analogy, but only slightly), it was all covered, safe and pretty neat too.

From ‘stop and gawk’ I had shifted to ‘stalk and gawk’. Looking at every conceivable rickshaw in Berlin and appreciating the designs. And then, somewhere close to the Brandenburg Gate, I saw the real thing. I mean, the real thing. If there was a competition to identify one excited gent in the whole of Berlin, well, make it the whole of Europe for those few minutes, I would have won by a mile.

Here I was in the middle of Berlin, with a treasure trove of history, modern cars zipping with German engineering oozing out of every pore, I was having this silly melodramatic tear that only Tamil movies could cough out of the most hardened soul, looking at a rickshaw!

It was almost the same thing except perhaps slightly more colourful and the top cover extending to the rickshaw-puller as well.

A zillion memories of school came in. Of Wren and Martin, maths exams, chemistry lessons, sports days and the like. And I was kind of stuck in a guileless trance.

Shaken by a soft nude that history that was made long time ago, awaited our viewing, I turned to have one last look at the rickshaw. Maybe click a super picture, I reasoned. There, I saw a couple locked in tight embrace and their face buried into each other’s with the rickshaw serving perhaps as a pompous backdrop.

I put my camera down and walked away.

The rickshaws of Berlin have a good life, I tell you. I mean, the roads are pretty good. What were you thinking?!?