JASEN BOKO
TRAVELLING FOR BEGINNERS
CONTENTS 7
Why travel Curiosity – thirst for knowledge
12
How to start
16
48
Transportation Walking Bicycle Hitchhiking How to convince your parents Your own transport (Car, Prove that you’re responsible motorcycle) Mention the trip to your parents Include your parents in planning Bus Train (InterRail) Introduce them to your fellow Airplane travellers
22
Planning the travel Thematic travels
26
When and where
28
The first time Check the prices and the timetable of buses and trains Think about where you’ll sleep Plan your stay at your 58 destination When you come back, share the experience with your friends How much does travelling cost
34
Whom you should travel with
38
Choosing baggage
43
How to travel Guide books Package deals
Where to sleep With or without a sleeping bag Couchsurfing Sleeping outside Camping Hostel Hotel What exactly is a hotel
66
Money and documents
68
Health on the road Digestive problems Exposure to the sun Motion sickness
82
Other dangers when travelling In transport Indian trains Theft Small fraud Optimist vs. Pessimist travelling
94
Technical aids during travels
Fear of heights 98 Enjoy yourself to the fullest Insect stings Infectious disease Sexually transmitted disease 100 About the author Injuries Jet lag Pharmacy for the road Be careful not to be accused of being a drug dealer
6
WHY TRAVEL he need for travelling, for the change of
scenery, is one of the oldest human needs. After all, humans did originate as a consequence of a travel – at the dawn of mankind, the ancestors of modern people set out from Africa to research areas far away from their homeland. It stayed like this for millennia: people moved in search of new pastures, new hunting grounds, and more fertile land. From then on, we’ve been attracted by the secret of what lies beyond the hill, beyond the horizon, or by the tales of travellers who returned from faraway lands fascinated by miracles they faced. People are the only inhabitants of Earth who travel not only for practical reasons. We often travel for the sake of travelling, in order to enjoy discovering the unknown. We’re travelling so much that tourism has become the most profitable branch of economy.
To all directions
In 2012, the number of travellers exceeded one billion!
7
Travel enriches the soul. You’ll meet new people, you’ll see unusual places, and you’ll meet with customs which are completely different from those in your country. In any case, it will be different than home, and often this need to feel and to be introduced with such differences provides the motivation to go somewhere.
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After you visit other countries and see cultures different than the one you’re living in, you’ll start to observe your own country and culture in a different manner. After the journey, people change – they become richer, and even better, in my opinion! By meeting with different customs, people and habits, you develop tolerance to differences and respect to others.
FOR KNOWLEDGE T RS HI T – Y T SI O RI CU Perhaps curiosity is the root of the human need to travel. Thanks to curiosity, humans arrived to the most hidden corners of the Earth; they entered atoms, the hidden secrets of the human body and discovered the causes of almost everything that surrounds them. Still, in the human soul, the curiosity and the desire to see what lies beyond always interfere with the fear of the unknown, the uncertainty and the insecurity of what is waiting for us. The part of us which prevails, the curiosity or the fear, defines what we’ll become and how we’ll live. All of us have dreams, but we don’t all have the desire, the capacity, or the courage to make them come true. My curiosity took me to the farthest corners of our planet. And in spite of what I have been through and in spite of my age, this curiosity hasn’t weakened. It still forces me to move around, to see what I hadn’t seen before and to hear languages I hadn’t heard before.
9
Driven by curiosity, which has to be quenched just like thirst, I became a traveller. I mounted every hill I could and wondered who had lit the fires I saw from there. Today, with aggressive advertising, and mostly owing to television and the Internet, everything is at the grasp of your hand, so it’s easy to get an impression about different countries, and the need to travel there somehow gets lost. And even when you decide to get moving, invitations from tourist agencies offering to think instead of you are all around, and so it becomes easier to accept a ready-made invitation for a journey someone else plans for you than to follow the challenges offered by your own choices.
10
Offers of tourist agencies can make their clients/travellers lazy. It’s easier to consume services than to decide on what you would actually like to do.
11 This is how, slowly but surely, curiosity turns into material desire. Materially-oriented travellers are more suitable to the modern day consumerist society, since curious people are unpredictable and difficult to control. Such people can simply wander off at the sight of a strange light, instead of shopping for what they were offered and what was imposed upon them. I’ve chosen to be curious, unpredictable and independent, always ready to head towards that strange light. What about you? Would you like your own curiosity to take you on a trip?
HOW TO START
12
I’ve never heard anyone say: I don’t like to travel.
Everybody is envious of my travels and I keep hearing the same remark: “I’d also travel if I could!” But they always find some reason why they can’t travel at a certain point in time, even though they so badly want to. Behind such excuses lies in fact a lie which we choose to believe in since it makes things easier for us. People are used to security, predictability, familiar food, friends who don’t provide any surprises; to their own, familiar space and well-known place in which they feel comfortable and live according to their habits. All the excuses are simply hiding the fear of moving to the unknown. And the unknown shall always remain as such unless we decide to visit it and make it known to us.
Here are some reasons why people usually can’t travel: I’d love to travel, but...
• I’m out of money. / I happen to have some money right now, but I need new curtains (shoes, phone...) • I don’t have the time. / I have some time, but I have to paint my flat. • I am overcrowded. • I don’t have a valid passport. / My passport expired two days ago. • My mom/wife/husband/boyfriend/brother/motherin-law/dog won’t let me. • I don’t have anyone to travel with. / I have someone at home, so I can’t travel. • I don’t speak the language. • I have an important task to finish. • I don’t have the clothes for the trip. • I’m coming down with something. • I can’t sleep in a bed that isn’t mine. • I don’t like food which wasn’t cooked by my mom. • I don’t have the appropriate luggage to travel. • All of the above!
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