Tips to make your next trip simply Fucking Awesome.

The summer flying season is in full bloom... thunderstorms and short staffed pilot categories and full airplanes flying round the clock makes for long days, short nights, and week after week on the road.  I have a moment now to catch my breath and write, so I'm going to do it!

But before I continue on my narrative of the Epic France Canal Boat trip with Kori, Bob, Marnie, Jim-Bob and Lisa, I want to take a quick detour into some info I’ve gleaned from several sources, including my own experiences.   For those of you who enjoy lists, this is a good one.

How to make your next trip a better one.  An epic one. 

1)    Do not check luggage.  Ever.  EVER.  Travel as lightly as you can possibly travel. If you’re packing so much that you have to check a bag, you’re bringing too damn much.  Americans tend to let their possessions rule.. and are thereby “owned” by their possessions.  Don’t travel like an American.

2)    Don’t waste time and space packing things you MIGHT need but could buy once you arrive.  Every city in the world sells underwear.  And shoes.  And hair gel.  When in doubt, see item number 1, above.

3)    Once you arrive, get some exercise.  You’ve been sitting in a plane or a train or some other cramped conveyance for hours.  Stretch your legs.  Go for a run, or a long, quick paced walk. It’ll clear your head, and will give you a sense of the local geography.  Oh, is there a head-shop and a brothel down the street from my hotel in Amsterdam?  Is there a Biergarten ‘gleick um de ecke’ from my hotel in Munich? There is?  Okay, now you know.

4)    Eat well.  And by well, I mean healthy... mostly.  It’s easy to overindulge on a trip… after all, you’re in “let’s have FUN” mode, right?  But gorging on pastries and cheese in France will make you feel slow and moribund.  Enjoy the local faire, but balance it out with lots of cleansing foods, like veggies, fruits and salads.  And hydrate.  Drink water all day, so you can drink other things all night.  Stay the hell out of McDonalds.  They're everywhere.

5)    Guidebooks generally suck.  Try to avoid them if you can.  A guidebook is generally someone else’s idea of a good time, and because of that, they are often overly subjective and/or commercially bent towards certain tourist venues.  Try doing web searches before you leave home, and print out the interesting stuff.  Wikipedia comes to mind as a good source.  Buy or print out a map.  Foreign language phrasebooks, however, can really help if you don’t speak the language where you’re going.  Like the south. Or New York.

6)    If you want to have a real experience, pick one or two major things to do, and DO them.  You can not see/do/experience everything; it’s just not possible.  Be real about it, and pick a handful of things… two or three… and completely DO them.  Immerse yourself.   Take the time to fully experience the things you choose.

7)    Go/see/do things of historical value and significance.  Battlefields are a good example.  Connection with our pasts creates a very strong sense of belonging and mutual experience.  Remember studying the renaissance art of Italy?  Go see it.  The Battle of Gettysburg?  Walk on terrain where our history happened.  The Bastille is cool.  Dachau is haunting.  So are the killing fields of Cambodia.  Go stand on that hallowed ground.  Connect and reflect.  It’ll make your experience much more meaningful.

8)    Find weird, esoteric, out of the ordinary shit to do at your destination.  Did you know that there is a Sex Museum in Amsterdam?  Now you do.  Did you know that at McDonalds in Japan you can buy a McEbi, and that it’s a truly disgusting shrimp-patty sandwich?  Yes, it’s nasty as hell.  But it’s okay, because you can wash it down with a beer you bought at a vending machine outside on a sidewalk.   Never mind.  You're staying out of McDonalds, remember?  You can also buy used women’s underwear from vending machines in Japan.  Used women's underwear.  I’m not kidding. 

9)    Leave your phone off, but take lots of pictures.  Don’t upgrade to an international plan for your phone… part of the experience is being out of range of the pressures of normal life.  Take lots of pictures, but don’t live the experience through the camera.  Find the balance between taking pictures of significant things and taking pictures of everything.  Don’t be an annoying tourist; come out from behind the camera.

10)  Read while traveling.  You’ll have lots of down time en route, especially if you ride trains.  Use that time to read.  Catch up with yourself.  Also nice for keeping balance: yoga, running, sex, meditation/prayer/reflection, laughter, the occasional beer, and sex.  Meet new people.  Make sure you nourish your soul, just as you do your body.  Breathe.  Relax.  Smile.  Have sex.

11)  Do your best to leave home at home.  The pressures, worries, stressers will accompany you if you let them.  Travel doesn’t interfere with your normal life, does it?  Don’t let your normal life interfere with your travels.  Separate them as much as possible.  That doesn’t mean ignore responsibilities and the people who count on us, it means simply that we should protect the good stuff.  Protect and defend your special travel time and your experiences, and don’t let them be marred by intrusion by everyday blah.

To sum it all up:  Carry less.  Do more.  Eat less, but make what you eat special.  Take some risks.  Get off the beaten path.  Meet people.  Shake hands and chat.  Drink socially.  Relax.  Read.  Write.  Love your life... and live it in such a way that if you were watching someone else do what you're doing, you'd be envious as hell.  Reflect in the knowledge that you are dong exactly what you want to do, where you want to do it, who you want to do it with.

Off you go, now, and be quick about it.  The world won’t sit still for you, get off your ass and go!  And drop me a postcard while you're at it.