How To Really Immerse Your Travel Experience

How to truly make memories while traveling.

How to get the full experience of traveling.

I have spent three years traveling the world. Asia, Europe, Australia. I have learned so much from traveling and have a burning passion to always see new things and experience them. I have met countless people that I still talk to on the daily. Traveling is a great privilege and I am so happy I did it. But since traveling has become popular in social media I have noticed a lot of things that other travelers do not do, and it hinders them I believe to get the full experience of adventure.

1.) Eat the local cuisine!

There has been multiple times I have traveled with other people and when we all get hungry obviously we go find somewhere to eat. What I noticed is some travelers will just go to a country to drink and party all night long. Nothing is wrong with that I do it too. But to fully experience a country EAT THE FOOD! Even if you do not particularly enjoy it, try it you might end up loving it. And even if you do not end up liking it, at least you tried something that was different!

Obviously check if the food stall is clean and kept because eating at food stalls can be a double edged sword at times. I remember I was in El nido last year and me and my partner at the time ate some bad calamari. I guess the best way to tell you what happened in the four days of misery was we "discovered a new closeness" taking turns every five minutes to use the toilet. Okay I do not want to scare you but I will warn you about eating local cuisine. One pointer I can give you is if the food stall is busy with locals, it is probably safe to eat there. If no one is at the stall it is either it gets busier at a later time, or its probably not sanitary. but I digress I see other travelers end up looking for a western friendly restaurants that serve s****y western food. I mean I can't count how many times I heard "that was a s**t burger" "the pizza taste funny" DUH GUYS it is because the locals do not really know how to cook western food. It is like taking a mom and pop pizza shop to India and telling then to make Chicken Vindaloo. My point I am trying to make is get out of your comfort zone, try something wild, try something different. You are in a different country. If you went to Italy you wouldn't order Chinese over a pasta would you? Now why would you go to Thailand and order a burger with fries instead of Massuman Beef Curry? Experience the food you wont regret it... Well maybe I do regret eating the calamari...

2.) Drink with the locals.

I forgot where this quote came from, but there is a lot of truth to this. "If you really want to experience a peoples culture go to there local bar" We live in a social world and that world enjoys a "Cold one". People from all cultures, races, countries. They all enjoy gathering around and drinking and talking. And I have experienced this first hand. I do enjoy talking to other travelers I really do but sometimes I realize there can be a divide between hanging out with just your traveling mates and chilling with the actual locals. Sometimes I even feel like some travelers think that the local population is just there servants, which is truly disgusting to me. I have experienced people looking down at workers, yelling at workers demanding there right alcoholic beverages to have a "good time". Please do not look down on anyone who has much more hardship in there lives then you will ever experience. Yes there are scammers and yes some locals treat you poorly too. But do not stoop to a level of being nasty and disrespectful to the locals or to anyone in that matter. Treat everyone with respect and you will find more people will want to help you if you are ever in need. But back to drinking at local bars yes do that. Decide one day to leave the tourist bar or the hostel bar and just find a bar where only the locals drink. Then proceed to make friends. Most likely they will not be able to speak the same language, but you can actually understand people with just there facial expressions, and how they move there hands pointing at objects. You will have a fantastic time of it. You will realize that they are just like you, even though culture is different, even though they look different they still are basically like you. They want to drink and they want to relax and enjoy and experience new things. You will feel way more immersed hanging out with the locals then chilling and drinking with other travelers. I will give you an example I was in Baguio and there are no tourist in that area yet. Me my partner at the time and my friend went to a local brewery to drink and have a good time. We saw this guy sitting by himself and I decided to go up to him and invite him over to come drink with us. Needless to say we had a great time drinking with him and after the drinking we realized that we had to get ready to leave to the bus station to continue our journey. Not only did he pay for our beer tab he went out of his way to drop us off at the bus station with his SUV. I have multiple stories like this, when I end up drinking with locals over other travelers. Drink with the locals you will not regret it. (Obviously do not go to sketchy bars where you do not feel comfortable and if you are girl be extra cautious of who serves your drinks. Always enjoy but have a awareness to you at all times.)

3.) Do something that you fear doing.

This is the time for you to be your best self. Everything you do while you travel is on you. When I travel I set a lot of list of things to do, but I always have that one thing I fear planned in that journey. Skydiving, eating weird s**t, going up to strangers. Whatever it is you fear this is the time to do it. I for one can vouch that in every one of my travels I never backed down to any of my fears and did it and loved it. heights? I went skydiving fifteen thousand miles off the ground in New Zealand. I jumped off cliffs in diving boards, caves, and going canyoneering. Food? I ate snakes, ate rats, bugs. Anything out of what western society has deemed unusual I have probably eaten it. Talking to people? Well I never was afraid to talk to people to begin with so that was easy for me. My point is I did things that I feared, and you should to. There is a saying I go by everyday "I rather experience then not know" I have always stepped out of my comfort zone and did the things I wanted to do. Yes there has been things where I have questioned if it was healthy of me to do that, but never the less I did it. And usually my life has been amazing when I go for what I wanted in life, regardless of the fact that people may judge me. They do not live your life so why care what they think of you? Obviously do not do things because of social peer pressure or if you think you will regret it later. Guys you not need to do life threatening things to yourself to impress the people around you. Girls you do not need to sleep with guys that say nice things to you. Now if you enjoy casual sex that is totally up to you I do not care but keep in mind most dudes who travel single are ready to lets just say "let there friend do some traveling too" You have to be careful not to get emotionally attached to a travel hook up. I have seen so much hostel drama because guys and even girls for that matter will sleep with you one night and then the next night there with some other person they woo into there room. Remember if you are there for romance chances are you stay away from the guy who says drunkenly "Your so beautiful I want you" But hey if you want to have fun, have some fun! Just be safe with it kids.

That is it! Traveling is probably the greatest thing you can do for personal growth, I recommend everyone to do it at least once in there life. Because you really do have only one life.

"Take only memories, leave only footprints" - Chief Seattle

-Andrew Paul Caasi