ravel is something we seek out, we save, dream and count the days until the trip starts. But travel is also a struggle. You’re out of your comfort zone, away from your life, friends, and family, amongst millions of stranger in strange places. This is both the ultimate appeal: to explore and experience new things and its primary drawback.
A simpler way to say it would be that everything we do has a price. The great experiences we get while on the road will also come with costs – not just financial.
1. Travel
The physical act of traveling. For me it takes a 3hr taxi to get to the airport, followed by 2-3hr wasting time to get to the check-in counter, or another line to pay an expensive exit tax just to be able to leave the country (I guess they figure if you have enough money to travel than you can afford to gift them money). Security lines, Immigration officials, find the gate, wait again, board, climb in your uncomfortable seat, wait for any delays to take off. Then, the physical stress of flying 35,000 feet in the air in cramped quarters breathing recycled air and the coughs and sneezes of your neighbors, or the children crying for sometimes 14 hours. Where every bounce could be a potential disaster. Then back on the ground again, only to go through another maze, immigration, the disembarking hall, find an ATM and figure out how to get into town. Either taxi, train or bus, sometimes fighting off scamming touts and rip-offs.
It’s a huge drain on anyone. Not a comfortable way to start a vacation. It’s boring, often frustrating, and overall a grueling ordeal.
2. Airports
The strange thing is that major airports have millions of visitors. Bangkok’s airport serves close to 45 million people each year. You would imagine that they would have figured out how to make things SUPER SIMPLE… Big yellow arrows on the ground that point the way out to a taxi. Or digital signs that point you to immigration, show wait times, having two or three times the number of security stations and immigration officials when they know flights are coming in. Think about huge sports stadiums that deal regularly with 100,000 people coming to a game in a single day!. It doesn’t take 2hr to get to your seat.
It’s not like they wake up on Tuesday and say, well – for the last 10 years we’ve had 126,000 people going through immigration with 45 min long lines, but SURELY today will be quiet, so we’ll only employ 8 immigration officials and 4 security checkers.
You end up feeling like a criminal (removing your shoes, emptying your pockets), and also disheartened by the often callousness and rudeness of the staff that should be there to help you have a pleasant and safe flight. The physical act of traveling (at least by air) on a scale of 1 – 10 rates a solid 1 in my humble opinion. Just below being strapped to the belly of a camel.
I mean no liquids over 100ml? Are they kidding? Seriously?
I take trains if feasible whenever possible, while they may initially seem longer, once you factor in the whole airport deal on both ends, and just the general horrific nature of airport service – trains which allow you to get up out of your larger seat (with table), walk to the dining car and get a beer or snack, look at the passing countryside, have wifi and get a good nap – wins every time.
3. Lack of Filipino food
Some countries like Thailand (and now Vietnam) offer incentives to natives who want to go overseas and set up Thai or Vietnamese restaurants. That’s why you’ll probably find a Thai restaurant in just about every American and European city on the planet. It’s called ‘gastro-diplomacy’ and you can read more about it on Vice or the Economist.
Sadly, I don’t think the Philippines follows this strategy. Trying to find Filipino food overseas is like trying to win an Escape Room session where someone has glued all the exits shut. When I do manage to find one it’s often mall-food-court-fare and not the best-tasting dishes. Often Filipino restaurants listed in guidebooks are long closed. They don’t last long.
At first, I’ll admit I wasn’t a fan of western food. But there are a few dishes (like Italian) that are growing on me. This might mean I eat Spaghetti far too much on a trip. But – that’s life. I’m still trying to adapt my tastes to more adventurous fare.
4. Going to bars and still being alone
It’s a weird thing. If you and your travel partner are sitting in your Airbnb in some strange country, drinking a beer – you’re not alone. Maybe you’re looking out the window in Amsterdam, watching people walk past or boats float by and you don’t feel lonely at all. Or you could be walking down the streets of Paris, or on a road trip through the Lofoten Islands (just the two of you) and still – not alone.
However, the moment you go out to a club or bar, man. You feel so alone and lonely. Everyone else around you is in groups of 2, 4, 6, 10… All laughing and having fun in a language you probably can’t understand and there sit the two of you with suddenly nothing to say, and feeling like the two aliens that just dropped down from Mars and don’t have a clue.
Sure, you can look through your photos, talk about the trip or drinks, or other people, but you don’t belong. It’s like crashing a strangers wedding party. Even amid a crowd that’s having a great time you’re locked into an invisible forcefield.
5. Hello jeans… again
Living with just the basics in your suitcase, sometimes for months.
While I love minimalism, and packing light, and if you read my blog this is the main motto I preach. I will admit, for long trips – 2+ months, it can REALLY get old just having the same clothes to wear day after day. If it’s a winter trip – then it’s the same boots and coat each morning.
Often your passing by AMAZING clothes in the windows of Paris or Berlin or Italy – and there you are, in the same ripped jeans and Converse you’ve been wearing for 80 days. If you’re with your travel partner – you’ve been looking at them for the last 2 or 3 months in the same clothes as well. I mean everything is clean but it’s like the days start to blur together and there’s no being a fashionista when you have just a carry on suitcase and 3 months to get through.
6. Over-tourism
Over-tourism is real and unfortunate. I think 90% of people that spend the night in inner Venice are now tourists. When you come in contact with Gelato sellers, canal boat workers, shop owners, money changers, restaurant servers or just about anyone – they sometimes don’t even see you as a human being. You’re just cattle, and they can treat you badly. After all, they know they’ll see you once and never again, you’re not going to be a repeat customer and they don’t need you to be – tomorrow will be a whole new boatload of tourists living the Venitian dream. I see this in places like Italy, Paris, Bangkok, wherever tourism is just out of control.
It’s understandable. We are clan-based, and it’s almost like you’re being constantly invaded by other clans and cultures. No chance to meet them and see them as real people.
The exception to this is smaller towns, and anytime you can stay long enough to become a regular. Spend three or four nights at a bar in a town even as jaded as Amsterdam and soon enough the bartenders will start to be kind to you.
7. Tourist traps
Travelers have money to burn, they must – they’re traveling after all. If you don’t have the money you’re probably sitting at home dreaming of traveling. I guess somewhere along the way the idea set in to fleece the stupid tourists in every possible way since they didn’t know local prices and customs. From fake cuckoo clocks in Germany to Chinese made souvenirs in Dublin, Pattaya, Liechtenstein and just about everywhere. Expensive dinners, and drinks. Even souvenirs that fall apart – I can’t count the number of my travel magnets where the magnets just fall off the fridge because they were too cheap to use a tiny bit of real epoxy.
Touts are one thing – you know the ones on the beach that come by wanting to sell you exactly what you don’t need on the beach – like a full lobster, or sunglasses even though you’re wearing some.
Just the hardness that happens in and around the tourist traps – like Florence, where the money changers will take your money and then refuse to give it back – even if you don’t like their rates and want to look elsewhere.
Tourist traps and ghettos are the banes of my existence, but sometimes can’t be avoided when the entire city is one… (here’s looking at you Florence and Venice)
8. Old-school museums
We all love going to museums and seeing famous paintings and sculptures… However, they are badly in need of a technological upgrade. You should be able to download an app on your phone when you walk into a museum and then let the GPS, sensors or QR codes give you information.
Not every visitor cares about the same thing, or are at the same level. One might just be interested in the basic history of the piece, another the artist, another the style – and people educated in art history might be looking for something completely different.
Allowing you to pick the information you want from an app make the possibilities endless. Even choosing what periods you’re interested in and creating unique tours. Let’s say you have only 2hr in the Louvre – an app could create a custom itinerary.
How can there be such good audio-books and voice actors but museums worth billions only provide old-school voice-overs that sound like the robotic Kit car from Knight Rider? They mercilessly try to rent you a headset and awful information guide that is worse than a high school substitute teacher droning on. So old school. Everyone has a phone – so let us use them.
9. Guidebook recommendations
If you want to be positive, or about 70% sure to have a completely average meal or even sub-average, then follow Lonely Planet or other Guidebooks to the ‘hidden gems’. Almost without fail you’ll wander down alleys and side streets looking for that perfectly romantic restaurant no-one knows about – only find high prices and disappointment.
In Belfast, I once took an expensive taxi all the way out to see the most Amazing Narnia sculpture garden (according to Lonely Planet) only to find a housing development with a few sad statues scattered about. (sigh)
Guidebooks have to find new things to talk about, to keep churning out new guidebooks to sell. If they just said ‘well guys – nothing has changed much in the last 10 years) – meh. There go the sales. So instead, their intrepid staff force-find hidden gems that you eagerly copy out and plan your trip around. They all sound so amazing.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned, just look for places where locals are eating, and eat there, even if you have to share a table, wait in line, or reserve for the next night. These places probably aren’t in the Guidebooks – but the experience will be much better.
10. The sad state of European air-conditioning
Europe is famous for being a little (just a little) snooty about air conditioning. I’ve often heard something along the lines of ‘well, we don’t use air-conditioning here because our weather is mild and it’s better on the environment (unlike those electrical pigs in America) is the unsaid part. 😉
But let me tell you. Europe in summer is HOT… Not hot like, man let’s dive in this café and get ice cream to cool down hot. But more like – all your hotel windows open at night with streetcar noise blaring in while you lay perfectly nude on the bed sweating through your sheets and feeling miserable.
The past three summers I’ve been to Europe (off-season even) I’ve been told ‘well, sorry – this is just a heatwave’. That doesn’t help the guests at all.. Once you’re nude, there’s just about nothing you can do to cool down further except open the minibar and sleep in front of it. (been there / done that).
Air conditioners are cheap. Terrible reviews on Tripadvisor when you’ve ruined peoples vacations are not cheap. As a start – even having a few portable (rolling) aircons on hand for the worst-hit travelers might be a good thing. Just roll it into their room and save the day.
Now when I book in Europe I only select air-conditioned rooms, even if I don’t know the weather, but this severely limits the options.
11. Expensive ‘average meals
It’s not that tough to make a good meal, your mom probably put together a decent meal every night for 18 years. Go to a dinner party at your friends and you’ll get a good meal. But when you’re traveling – you end up paying crazy sums for sub-average food. In general, I’d say 60% of the meals I have on the road are sub-average. You eat the meal, think yucks that sucked and then you get a big bill you have to pay for. I’m not cheap by nature – but when I get a 100 euro bill and I look at my plate of linguini that looks like a yellow unicorn just vomited into the plate, I just feel sad.
Also, more and more tourist restaurants are hiding the service fee on your bill. Never being sure if you have to tip, if it’s been added in already, etc. They’re getting awfully sneaky.
When you go to upscale places, they conversely give you LESS food, because it’s about quality and artistry. The gastronomic delights! Thanks, but for 200 euro 4 bites of fish and two crossed albino asparagus stems surrounded by drops of raspberry doesn’t cut it…
12. Impossible public transportation
Some cities like Paris, London, and others get millions of visitors a year and yet do very little to help visitors get around.
Venice for instance which is now USD 8 to take a short hop across the canal. Other places with machines that look like they’re right out of Dr. Who – and you are helpless to try to get tickets. Germany is one place that’s done a pretty good job. There’s usually an information desk at the bigger stations, and the menus on the machines are in multiple languages and everything is orderly, mostly one time, and easy to use.
If these cities that are swarmed with tourist would just put a little more effort into making public transportation easy to use it would end up with less congestion, less pollution and a nicer city for everyone, even the locals. For instance, in many cities you can no longer just pay on the tram – you have to find special stores to get tickets or refillable cards before you can board. Good luck with that. Or other places you have to know to stamp your ticket in a little box or face a big fine.
I love public transportation, it’s a great way to save some dosh and see a different side of the city, but on long trips when moving through many cities it’s often just easier to use Grab taxi or whatever taxi app is available. Bad for the environment, bad for the locals and bad for my pocket.
