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TRAVEL TIPS
Few notes, of course to take or to leave, about the philosophy we try to follow while travelling... That could be summarized by the Chinese precept "Act for the best, be prepared for the worst, take what comes up"...
1_ RELAX
You have people who like the last second and people who prepare... We are in the category who prepare the essential and keep improvisation for details: to avoid stress and enjoy as much as we can, the best key we found is preparation! So, we have a bit of material, and a lot of check-lists, not to miss the shampoo, to book the campsite or to check if the-great-restaurant-you-have-seen is not closed on Tuesday...
But, that takes some time, and it's always better to take this time a bit in advance: you often have to call back because the right guy is not there right now, or you can be trapped by one deadline or another...
Life is about courage
and going into the unknown.
(image and quote from the movie "Walter Mitty")
2_ FORGET (AND LEARN AGAIN)
Probably the most important thing... Many things can seem similar to our culture but they are totally different... It's quite obvious in some countries like Vietnam and Thailand, it can create some problems in countries like Australia and New Zealand... Because of our habits and our education, we see everything through our own cultural prism, in which things works -well or not- in one way: while travelling, we have to force our mind to understand that NOTHING is obvious. Whatever we are talking about transports, accommodation, prices, times, cultural codes, food... NOTHING flows naturally!
To be clear, let your prejudice at home, and inquire! The internet is a good source, of course, but local people and institutions are often better! As my INSA's teacher used to say: "there's no stupid questions, only answers can be: it's better to look dumb 5 minutes than staying his whole life".
3_ SLOW DOWN
Take your time... Tenting to optimize the schedule as much as you can, but if so you take the risk to miss some things, like a sunrise or glow worms wake up...
Nothing better to discover an area than to do it with the same rhythm than local people: the car may be the best way in the US Middle-West, but it will be a nightmare to explore Paris... Yes, there are planes between almost every city, but the 500, 1000 or 2000 kilometres of distance between two of them can also be worth to be travelled! You even can find some good deals to do that for cheap or free (hitchhiking, car-pooling...)
At last, there's also a side "to deserve" for some journeys that take time and ask efforts: not sure we can appreciate as much the Tongariro volcanoes or the Cathar castles if we don't have a "little" hike to enjoy them?
The world's a playground.
You know that when you are a kid, but somewhere along the way everyone forgets it.
(image from the movie "Walter Mitty", quote from the movie "Yes Man")
4_ DARE
Have you seen the movies "Yes Man", "We bought a zoo" or "Walter Mitty"? It's not even a recommendation that we are doing now, it's a command: you HAVE TO watch them! They had been really fundamental to think that yes, it's possible, we can do it if we work hard for...
Everything's possible, open your mind, don't ask yourself too much questions, dare and go for it!
5_ SMILE
Amber will be able to confirm that first of all, I'm really bad to carry out this kind of advice... Even though our experience shows me each time how I'm wrong!
Indeed, it's incredible how everything become quite simple when you arrive in a positive way, smiling or at least with a positive will. Looks obvious? Even easy? Yep, maybe. What is much less easy is to keep smile and good mood when things go wrong, when an unforeseen event happens, when the schedule runs one hour late in one minute, when a place is closed or when the weather is playing its own game...
However, you have to try to keep in mind that even a bad news can finally become a good news. Nothing to see with religion, we just give you two little examples:
If the road was not closed with road works, we would be on time at Hobbiton Movie Set (NZ) but we would visit it under the clouds... But "thanks" to that (and be sure that all good mood had disappeared at this time...), we could take plenty of pictures under a nice sun!!
If we had a hot weather when we went back to see the glow worms in Springbrook NP, we would have been able to see the fireflies but we would have missed the phosphorescent mushrooms...
6_ ENJOY THE PRESENT
It looks obvious but please think about it, and you will see that it's not so easy: our mind is nearly always in the future (or busy to regret the past, depending on people...), and finally we don't enjoy 100% of the people who are there, of the time we have right here right now...
More than that, you can try to make each time more interesting, or different: even with a road you made 10 times, you can change your point of view, stop somewhere, take another road and ‘lost’ yourself…
So sometimes, turn off your phone, even if there's some network, disconnect your mind from its usual preoccupations and enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!!!