Travel Advice I Ignore On My Trips

Ever since I started traveling, I was given a lot of travel advice from how to pack my suitcase to how to book a hotel. Often times I skipped most advices and traveled. Everyone has their own idea of how, where, when, why and with whom to travel. It occurred to me that if I took half of the advice given to me, I would have never enjoyed my trips the way I did. Here are some of the travel advice given to me by my family, friends and co-workers, which I patiently listened and left at home :)

Travel Advice I Ignore

Travel Advice | (c) Photo By Johnny Jet's Travel

Travel Before You Have Kids

Since I don’t have kids yet, this is the perfect excuse to travel :) However, I don’t intend to stop traveling when I have kids one day. Yes, having little ones is a handful when traveling but at the same time it is fun to involve everyone in your family on a holiday. Just because you have kids doesn’t mean your access to airports and hotels will be revoked. Trust me, they will still let you in. So I politely ignore this travel advice, when given.

Do Not Talk To Strangers

If you are a woman and traveling alone, you will get a earful of travel advice from everyone, and this is the most stressed out point. While it is true that you should be cautious when talking with strangers, it is the only way to get to know people, especially when you are out of the country. I have met amazing and interesting people along my travels. Trick is to not share your personal information with the first person you meet and to use your instincts. In my opinion, if you are not interacting with other people, you are only touring, not traveling!

Leave Your Pets At Home

Most of us, if not all of us consider our pet as a member of the family. So how can we leave a family member at home and have fun at our holiday destination? Besides, pets like traveling too, especially dogs. They love new places, environments, people, adventure and most of all to hang around with other members of the family. What’s more, to make things easier for pet owners on their trips, there are number of pet-friendly airlines and hotels. So you can safely ignore this travel advice.

Do Not Eat Street Food

If you ask nomads, you will hear about how they got sick eating street food. They will also tell you how tasty it was. It is true that street food can get you sick, especially in a foreign country. However, not all street food will affect your health. If you ask me, I would rather take a bit of risk of a rare stomach bug than missing out a delicious and cheap street food. Through the years I have traveled, I think I have gotten sick just once. Trick here is to observe the surrounding. If it is cooked there, served hot and lot of people eat it, chances are your stomach can handle it too. So I know I can safely ignore this travel advice as well.

It Is Too Dangerous

While planing a trip to Brazil years ago, I was advised by friends not to go. Apparently the risk of being around people, animals and diseases were too dangerous at the time. Well, how can I miss such a nice country? So I went anyway and I got no sicker than I could have in any other country. I enjoyed the surroundings, people and the wildlife. Trick is to research. If locals can live happily, you could too, unless of course you are a Martian.

Do Not Book All Inclusive Travel Deals

They say that all inclusive travel deals are too expensive and it won’t turn out to be what you expect. Who are you kidding? They say all inclusive for a reason. I went on an all inclusive trip once and it was amazing. I went exploring outside the resort, laid under the sun, danced and had a few drinks, visited the city, held crocodiles, chatted with locals and much more. Now does that sound like a bad deal? I would definitely recommend an all inclusive and would do it again too. The real travel advice here is however, is to go with a well established travel agent.

Pretend You Are A Canadian

Most people say when you are abroad, to pretend as if you are a Canadian. This is because people in certain parts of the world have negative views about America and its allies while Canadians are seen as [cough]peaceful people[cough]. To my surprise, majority of locals in countries have no time to interview you. They will however, try to sell you a souvenir, which you can add to your collection. So just be patriotic to your own country and travel proud.

As you can see, there are no specific ways to travel nor how, when, where and why to travel. Take your best judgement, do some research and travel safely. Do you have travel advice that you ignore?