Our meaningful travel guide is an A-Z guide to more immersive, more engaging, and more enriching travel. If you want a trip that is more meaningful and more memorable – whether you’re looking for more than a holiday focused on ticking off sights or a flop and drop beach break – we have loads of ideas for you, whether you’re travelling solo, as a couple or with family or friends.
This A-Z guide to more meaningful travel is our guide to creating a more enriching trip that’s permeated with unforgettable transformative experiences – a holiday with purpose and meaning, whether your aim is to learn new things, to meet more local people, to get out of your comfort zone, or to really get beneath the skin of a place.
When we launched Grantourismo in 2010 with a yearlong grand tour of the world dedicated to slow, local and experiential travel – forms of travel that we believed were not only more immersive, more interactive and more enriching, but also more sustainable, ethical and responsible – we were on a mission to explore forms of travel that are more meaningful and more memorable, as much for us as for our readers.
Our A-Z meaningful travel guide includes loads of suggestions, with links to stories on experiences that have enriched us, interviews with locals we’ve encountered, and opportunities we’ve taken to give back to the places we’ve settled into and the people and communities we’ve connected with during that 12-month grand tour project and in the 14 years since we launched Grantourismo.
Meaningful Travel Guide – A-Z Guide to More Enriching Travel
This is our A-Z guide to more enriching travel with ideas for travelling more meaningfully on your next trip.
A for Altruism and Giving Back
Travellers take so much from the places they travel to and the locals they meet when they go on a holiday, from experiences and souvenirs to travel tips from hotel staff or a recipe from a chef. But few travellers give back to those places and their people. The benefits of social interactions are often one way. You can so easily change that, change lives, and change yourself in the process.
The easiest thing you can do is give generous tips to guides and drivers you hire. You could make a donation to a hospitality training restaurant you dined at or a charity project you visited. You could do some tree planting with a local organisation or school as we did in Costa Rica to help save the Titi monkeys and at Taita Wildlife Sanctuary in Kenya to contribute to wildlife conservation.
Tips: do something more informally, such as teach a driver or guide more English to help them get more work, and ask them to teach you some of their language in return. Renting a holiday house with a cook? Why not trade cooking classes, as Terence did with Desak, our villa chef in Bali? Desak was a great cook, but she wanted to expand her repertoire, as guests sometimes asked for Western meals. So Terence taught Desak dishes in exchange for Balinese cooking lessons.
B for Being Present and People-Watching
If you’re our age or older, you’ll remember a time when one of the most absorbing and enjoyable parts of travelling was simply sitting on a hotel balcony with cold beers after a long day out sightseeing, or sipping aperitifs at a café table on a piazza in the early evening, just watching the world go by. It was called people-watching and for many travellers it was a big part of the travel experience before the digital age.
People-watching involved sitting back and taking everything in everyday life and observing the general action, gazing at gob-smacking architecture or awe-inspiring monuments, and soaking up the lively atmosphere. It was a great way to gain some insight into local cultures and customs, social interactions, and daily rituals such as the passeggiata in Italy, and a way to better understand the place and its people.
These days we talk about ‘being present’, taking time to focus on the here and now without wishing you were somewhere else. Terence and I live in a major tourist destination – in Cambodia’s Siem Reap, the departure point for the spectacular Angkor temples – just a five-minute stroll from the town’s tourist centre, which we pass through daily. Yet I rarely see travellers ‘being present’ or people-watching; they’re too busy scrolling their smart phones.
Tip: leave your digital devices at the hotel for part of each day (see ‘D’), sit somewhere and do nothing except look around you instead, or, write down your observations in a diary or write some good old-fashioned postcards to friends and family back home.
C for Curious Travel
Travel with a sense of curiosity about the world around you, continually questioning what you’re seeing, reading, smelling, hearing, and experiencing, and you’ll learn so much more than passive travellers who simply turn up. It’s how food and travel writers in search of stories travel and while you might not end up publishing anything you’ll return home with pearls of wisdom and tales to share.
Do some research before you leave so you have a basic foundation of knowledge on the history and culture of the place you’re visiting upon which you can build a richer understanding. When you arrive, connect with as many locals as you can – the quickest way is to sign up for a few tours with local experts – and be inquisitive, using your basic knowledge to ask more informed questions.
Tip: when researching tours, look for those guided by scholars and subject experts such as these in-depth tours we did with an artist on Montmartre’s art history and art scene; on the boulevards and arcades of Paris with a scholar doing a PhD on the subject; on Venice’s water issues with a marine scientist; on the cosmopolitan history of Istanbul with a Turkish historian; and this Sydney architecture walk with a local architect. We recommend Get Your Guide for booking tours, as well as buying tickets to museums. (See ‘E’.)
D for Disconnecting from Devices
There are few things I hate seeing travellers do more (apart from wearing elephant pants) than incessantly scrolling their devices – when they could be engaging with local people (see ‘C’), taking in the local action and atmosphere of a place (see ‘B’), or simply looking up and around them, at the architecture, architectural details, environment, birdlife, and so on.
Yet instead of interacting with their surroundings and the people around them, many travellers are more immersed in their devices, whether they’re checking in or sharing on social media, taking selfies or photos of their food, or simply scrolling mindlessly. I often wonder what their memories of their travels will be.
I stopped using social media when I returned to Australia to take care of my mother at the end of last year, as I was just so overwhelmed by the tasks at hand that something had to give. While I do miss connecting with some of my online friends, it was like de-cluttering my brain. I’m much more focused, my concentration has much improved, I’m more observant, and I’m reading more books again, one of my greatest passions.
I know it’s near impossible to disconnect completely and leave your smart phones at home let alone at the hotel these days when they’re loaded with apps for banking, organising your itinerary and bookings, monitoring your health etc. But at least try to reduce your device time.
Tips: try to take a digital detox and disconnect from your devices when you next travel. Use a proper camera instead of your phone camera; take a guidebook or printed map instead of using Google Maps; delete your social media apps for your trip duration and share your pics when you get back home.
E for Experiential Travel and Learning Holidays
Experiential travel provides one of the quickest and easiest ways to inject more meaning into a trip. In its simplest terms, travelling experientially just means doing and learning things in contrast to doing nothing and lying on a beach. Experiential travel is a more active, interactive and engaging style of travel that’s rooted in the experience of places in deeper and more immersive ways.
Along with slow travel and local travel, experiential travel was another cornerstone of our Grantourismo project. In every place we settled into for two weeks at a time during the 12-month project, we made it a goal to learn a number of things: a little of the local language, history and culture; learn about the local food, including a mastering a quintessential dish; and to learn to do something relevant to the place.
Tip: next time you plan a holiday, book some experiences and activities, such as this Cape Town jazz ‘safari’ with local jazz musicians; sign up for some language lessons or cooking classes; or do a longer course and build a whole holiday around learning something, from silk-weaving to sailing. We like Get Your Guide for booking tours and activities. Also see ‘C’.
F for Food Travel and Getting a Taste of a Place
Food travel or culinary travel is a food-focused form of experiential travel that will give you a taste of a place through experiences of its cuisine and culinary culture. The easiest ways to do that is to visit local markets and book some cooking classes and food tours.
On our grand tour, Terence did loads of cooking classes, such as this Paris macaron making class with a pastry chef. We always do food tours where we go, such as this Bangkok street food tour we did with a local foodie.
Just cooking and sharing meals with local people can be a really enriching (and delicious!) experience and that can happen very naturally and spontaneously. When Maria, the caretaker of our holiday rental in Puglia, learned that we loved food, she turned up with a pasta board and rolling pin, bags of flour, and bunches of garlic and tomatoes, which she hung up in our kitchen, before proceeding to teach Terence how to make the local specialties, orecchiette and wood-fire pizza.
Tip: If you have the time to befriend strangers and the confidence to invite them to your apartment rental or holiday house for a meal, that’s wonderful. If you don’t, EatWith is an excellent site for booking cooking classes and meals with locals around the world.
G for Greener Travel and Reducing Waste
Like responsible travel (see ‘R’), there’s a feel-good factor and a sense of satisfaction and pride from doing the right thing that comes into play for those of us looking for travel that is more meaningful. It’s about travelling with a conscience. In this case, it’s with an environmental conscience.
As we say in our guide to being a greener traveller, it isn’t rocket science but it requires a commitment to travelling more sustainably and leaving a lighter footprint, to making more environmentally friendly decisions, from what to pack and the transport to use, to the places you stay, things you do, where you eat, and what you buy.
Start by choosing greener stays, such as off-the-grid Feynan Eco-Lodge in Jordan, an inspiring model for eco-friendly accommodation, which was built on the footprint of an archaeological campsite, so as not to extend the area of intervention. Solar panels provide energy and hot water, and there is no electricity; candles made by local women are the main source of lighting.
Water, used sparingly and strictly controlled, comes from a nearby natural spring. Clay urns store natural spring water in rooms, which guests drink from recycled glasses. Waste created by the lodge is recycled or composted, serving as fertiliser for nearby farms, while waste from olive pressing is used to light fireplaces in the evenings during winter.
Greener travel is also travel that is more nature focused – whether it’s camping or glamping, bush walking or hiking, bird-watching or wildlife spotting, forest bathing or tree hugging. It can simply involve immersing yourself in the environment for a while, visiting a national park, or taking a stroll through a garden. There are few things more restorative.
Tips: travelling greener and more eco-consciously can start with doing little things such as travelling with a reusable shopping bag, an eco-friendly water bottle, a spork or chopsticks in a case for travel in Asia, re-using your hotel bath towel, taking short showers, and saying no to single-use plastic. It can also involve bigger commitments such as volunteering to protect wildlife or help monitor turtles or save koalas.
H for Handmade and Handcrafted
Seeking out local artisans when you travel and the beautiful things they make and choosing to buy handmade and handcrafted local products over factory-made souvenirs (that could very likely be produced by children in sweatshops) was another of our goals when we launched Grantourismo.
It makes for more ethical and sustainable shopping that gives back to local artisans and craftspeople, helping to support their work and preserve arts and crafts traditions, while contributing to the local economy. There’s that feel-good factor again, in knowing that your purchase will support ongoing artistic practice.
But if you get to engage with the artists and makers as we try to do, watch the works being made, learn about the meaning and symbolism in their work, origins of the materials used, the artistic process or history of the tradition, and hear their personal stories, I guarantee that the thing you buy, whether it’s watercolour paintings, handwoven silk or handpainted masks will be imbued with more meaning than a t-shirt, ash-tray or elephant pants.
Tips: see our guide to shopping ethically and sustainably and seek out: artisans keeping traditions alive such as these candy-striped Catalan textiles in Ceret and bookbinding techniques in Venice; fair trade shops such as Ubud’s Threads of Life, which supports traditional weavers; ethical boutiques such as Mademoiselle Bambû in Paris and Giovanna Canela Miranda’s Ave María in San Miguel de Allende; and vintage shops everywhere from Melbourne to Vienna, Edinburgh to Berlin.
I for Immersive Travel
The most immersive kind of travel is what I call extreme experiential travel and it’s really rooted in the experience of places in deeper ways. For us it’s about settling into a place for quite a while to learn to live like locals, and making that stay a project on that place. It’s about purposeful travel, and having a mission or quest. (See ‘Q’). It’s not a form of travel for everyone, but it’s how we really love to travel.
It’s about gaining a really rich understanding of the history, culture, context, society, nature, cuisine, art, and everyday life of the destination and its people through really immersive experiences and education, both informal and organised – whether it’s doing hands-on activities, behind-the-scenes tours, interactive experiences, classes and courses, or embarking on learning holidays. (Also see ‘E’).
J for Journey
While the focus of most travel is about the destination – and we love nothing more than settling in and immersing ourselves in places – the journey and the getting there can be just as enriching, educational and rewarding, offering countless opportunities for self-reflection as much as connection.
From road trips to train journeys, there’s something so exciting and absorbing about dreaming of an epic trip on the road or rails, plotting out a route, and embarking on the adventure. In many ways, completion can be the least satisfying part of the journey, often bittersweet.
It’s the getting there that is so exhilarating, the not-knowing what’s in store for you each day, who you’ll meet en route, what you’ll eat on the way, what surprising sights you might spot out the window. Leave room in your itinerary for spontaneity and the chance to diverge from your plan makes the journey all the more thrilling.
Tip: incorporate a journey into your next trip, but don’t plan every minute and don’t book accommodation every night to allow room for spontaneity and serendipity. For inspiration, see these road trips we did around the Italian Lakes, Mallorca, Thailand, and Australia.
K for Kicking Back over Rushing About
Creating a carefully planned itinerary might be essential on a short trip, so you can book hotels, tours and restaurants, and not waste time arranging things when you arrive. But when you rush about from one monument to the next ticking off sights, there’s a tendency for everything to become a bit of a blur, especially if you’re doing it day after day.
Tip: make sure to build in time to kick back and do very little at all – whether it’s time to wander around the neighbourhood you’re staying in, linger in a local café, read a book on a bench in a garden, take pleasure in a picnic in a park, or simply to sprawl out on a blanket to watch the world go by or gaze up at the sky. (Also see ‘Z’).
L for Local Travel and Connecting with Locals
Local travel was one of the pillars of our project when we launched Gratourismo in 2010 – along with slow travel and experiential travel. For us, local travel is about engaging with local people you meet as much as the places you visit. It means settling in for a while, living like locals, shopping the local markets, supporting local businesses, and connecting with locals.
Local travel was a big part of our grand tour project, because we had long believed that it was the people we encountered on our travels, as much as the places that we went to, that made travel more meaningful and more memorable for us – and that was of the main motivations for developing the project.
As we said when we launched Grantourismo, whether it’s an all-night conversation with someone on a plane or train, the hotel staff who never forget your name, the owner of the local shop you frequent who teaches you a new phrase every day, or a tour guide who enlightens you with insights into their home and culture, it’s encounters with locals that can really make a trip and become some of the things you’ll treasure most about a holiday.
Tips: we have loads of tips to how to meet locals. But here’s one tip: start by saying hello!
M for Mindful Travel
Mindful travel is simply travelling with mindfulness, but what does that mean? It means being completely present (see ‘B’), free of distractions (see ‘D’), and fully aware of the environment you’re travelling through, the space you’re in, the people around you, and your own conduct.
Think you can be mindful when you travel? Try it, as I’d go as far to say that most travellers aren’t mindful when they travel, especially when they travel in groups. Yet everybody has the ability to be mindful, you just need to cultivate that quality. So what’s so special about mindfulness?
Travellers who are mindful tend to be kinder, more caring, more compassionate, less judgemental, more humble, and show more gratitude – all great qualities for travellers, especially travellers who want to give back and contribute more to the places they travel and people they meet.
Tip: if you don’t think you’re very mindful, you can cultivate mindfulness through meditation, breathing and yoga.
N for Neighbourhood Exploration
For lovers of local travel, local neighbourhoods rule. After spending a year focused on exploring the local neighbourhoods we settled into on that yearlong grand tour that launched Grantourismo, it was hard to return to staying in the big city hotels in tourist zones that we’ve often had to check into for our work as travel writers.
If given a choice, we much prefer to stay in an apartment or house in a local neighbourhood as much for the chance to get an insight into how locals live – whether it’s from shopping locally to dining out in unpretentious neighbourhood restaurants to meeting the neighbours and forming friendships, however fleeting, that’s next to impossible to do in a hotel.
We got a kick out of being able to invite people we met during our stay over for a meal or even drinks and snacks – and, in turn, being invited to their home. But most of the time, it was the simple pleasure of strolling alongside a quiet Amsterdam canal, a peaceful cobblestone lane in Paris or Barcelona, or serene creek-side path in Edinburgh, and not spot a single tourist.
Tip: if you’re planning on renting an apartment or house in a town or city, carefully research the neighbourhoods. Because while you might want to get off the tourist trail, you’ll still want to have access to museums, shops, cafés, restaurants, bars and so on.
O for Off the Beaten Track Travel
Whether it’s spending time in second cities such as Lyon over Paris or Valencia over Barcelona; settling into local neighbourhoods instead of staying in hotels in the tourist zones; or taking a road trip through the Australian Outback or regional towns instead of driving the busy east coast route, getting off the beaten track is one of the best ways to avoid contributing to the problem of overtourism.
Get off the tourist trails and take the routes less travelled and you’ll also get more glimpses into local life and have more opportunities to connect with locals. (Also see ‘L’). The pace tends to be slower and people more relaxed in smaller cities, towns and villages than in big fast-paced capitals – locals are therefore more inclined to take time out to have a chat.
‘Authenticity’ is such a loaded concept, but get off the tourist trail and you’ll get to visit places with more heart and soul, you’ll get to have experiences and interactions that feel more real, because they haven’t been constructed for tourists, and encounters with locals that feel more genuine rather than the often-repeated conversations with people working in tourist centres.
Tip: if you’re travelling off the beaten track, build more time into your itinerary to allow for getting lost, or at least detours, and the slower pace of life.
P for People Centred Travel
Local travel is by its nature people-centred with its priorities of settling into local neighbourhoods and opening yourself up to encounters with locals over racing around ticking off sights in tourist zones. But while venturing off to unfamiliar countries to connect with strangers can be incredibly fulfilling, don’t forget to make time for the people closest to you.
You can also enjoy enriching and meaningful holidays closer to home – or in far flung countries – with the people you love, and not only your romantic partner or kids. Multi-generational holidays – trips away with parents, grandparents and grandchildren; perhaps even with some aunts, uncles and cousins – became a post-pandemic trend because families were keen to make up for lost time spent apart.
Tip: plan a family holiday. Just because life has returned to ‘normal’ doesn’t mean you should stop holidaying with loved-ones. We never know what’s around the corner – another pandemic is not out of the realm of possibilities – so make sure to make time to spend away with the people you treasure and make some unforgettable memories.
Q for Travel with a Quest
Travelling with a quest or goal is another way to inject meaning into your vacation. Travelling with purpose or with intention gives some focus and structure to your travels, though that doesn’t mean that pursuit has to dominate your whole holiday. Although if your project is something you’re passionate about you probably won’t mind if it does.
Even if you choose to devote the bulk of your vacation to completing a course or project or undertaking a volunteer experience, you can bookend that commitment with leisure time. In fact, it’s a good idea to schedule downtime and a period for reflection at the end of a volunteer trip that might have been challenging.
During our 2010 yearlong global grand tour that launched Grantourismo – a 12-month trip dedicated to slow, local and experiential travel – we were on a quest to explore ways of making travel more meaningful and more memorable, for us as much for our readers, and we loved every minute of it, as challenging as it could sometimes be. It was hard work but it was transformative on so many levels that I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
R for Responsible Travel
Responsible travel is just about doing the right thing and travelling responsibly and ethically. That might mean staying in a small locally owned hotel instead of a big multinational brand or hiring local guides instead of foreign guides in an impoverished destination where locals are struggling to eke out an income.
Travelling responsibly could also mean dressing modestly instead of wearing skimpy clothes when you’re visiting a church or spiritual sight such as a temple or travelling in a religiously conservative destination. It’s about showing respect for a religion or culture that’s not your own, regardless of your personal beliefs.
What’s responsible travel got to do with meaningful travel? Aside from the feel-good factor, and sense of satisfaction and pride from doing the right thing, you will gain more respect from locals as a traveller – which, in turn, will open doors and create more opportunities for you to interact with an engage with locals.
Tip: see our guide to travelling responsibly in Cambodia for ideas on how you can travel more responsibly wherever you’re travelling.
S for Slow Travel and Slow Food
Slow travel, which we believe to be one of the most sustainable forms of travel, was another cornerstone of our Grantourismo project, along with slow food. It was my parents who instilled the love of slow travel in me. As a child, my family set out on a one-year trip caravanning around Australia that turned into five years and took me into my mid-teens.
As adults, in between a seven and a half year stint as expats in the Middle East, Terence and I subsequently spent seven years living out of our Samsonites as a guidebook authoring cum food and travel writer-photographer team, bouncing around the world on assignments and travel slowly in between, stopping to rent apartments and write when we fell in love with a place.
We’ve been known to go somewhere for a week and end up renting an apartment for a month, or head somewhere for a month and find ourselves staying for six. That kind of spontaneity and serendipity is something we’ve long loved to make room for in our travels, but you can only do that if you travel slowly.
We were guilty of ticking off sights when we were younger. But we never felt that it was a very satisfying kind of travel, rushing through cities, running around seeing the iconic sights and little else. You find yourself focusing more on taking photos so you don’t forget everything you’re experiencing than taking in the everyday life and atmosphere of a place. That’s our preference and always be.
Tips: take your time getting to places, travelling slowly on trains and ferries; embark on road trips with loose itineraries; when you get there, settle in for a while and rent an apartment or holiday house; walk everywhere and use local transport; eat like locals; shop at local markets and supermarkets; enjoy picnics in parks; and linger in local cafes. (See ‘L’.)
Travelling slowly is also our top budget travel tip. Trains, ferries, buses, bikes, and even your feet, will (mostly) all be more affordable than planes (low cost airlines aside), so take your time getting to where you want to go, and travelling from place to place. Remember – as clichéd as it sounds – travel is as much about the journey as the destination. (See ‘J’.)
T for Treading Lightly and Leaving No Trace
The idea of treading lightly and leaving no trace is all about reducing our environmental footprint and minimising our overall impact when we travel, but particularly when it comes to the environment and indigenous cultural sites – the idea being that you don’t contribute to damaging places you visit and that they’ll still be there when you return in their pristine condition.
There are seven core principles of ‘leaving no trace’ that travellers have long been encouraged to adhere to. I recently discovered a dozen or so little concertina pamphlets outlining the principles of the “leave no trace” campaign that I’d picked up in national parks offices and tourism offices on our Australia guidebook research trips.
But the roots of the thinking lie within indigenous cultures and land stewardship of First Nations Peoples in Australia, North America and around the world and cover things like treading softly, respecting the land and its life, including wildlife and birdlife, leaving what you find behind, and taking what you bring away with you, such as waste.
Tip: read about the 7 principles of ‘leaving no trace’ here and try to apply them whenever you travel, not only in wilderness and national parks.
U for Under the Skin
Getting beneath the skin of the places you travel to and settle into is simply about getting to know those destinations on a deeper level. It’s also about learning to love places as you would people, warts and all. It means doing more than ticking off tourist sights but gaining a more complex understanding of that place.
So, for example, let’s use Paris as example: while you might gain great insights into Paris and its history and culture on walking tours with historians and artists, learn about the country’s cuisine on cooking classes and the city’s culinary culture on food tours, a walk with a scholar will take you even deeper. Like any city and its society, Paris is not perfect and it has its issues.
When we were in Paris during our yearlong grand tour, a star chef said that couscous was Paris’ quintessential dish, sheesha was hugely popular, an American tourist told us what she most loved about Paris was its diversity, and France was home to Europe’s largest Muslim population, yet a ban of the full Islamic niqab or ‘burqa’ looked set to be introduced
It was obvious that the cosmopolitanism our new American friend found so appealing, and the exotic flavours Parisians appeared to love – from couscous to sheesha – was obviously not adored by all. All of these things got me thinking about multiculturalism in Paris, so to learn more I joined Sophie Nells, who completed a thesis on Algerian immigrants in Paris, on a walking tour she called ‘Immigration and the Changing Face of Paris’.
Sophie’s thought-provoking tour had me asking more questions than it provided answers, and showed me a side of the French capital I probably wouldn’t have discovered on my own. It also introduce a Paris that was far more complex than the popular perceptions of the city as charming, beautiful and romantic, a Paris that was deeply layered, and it peeled back a few of those layers.
V for Volunteering Ethically
Volunteering is one of the first things that comes to mind for travellers looking for a more meaningful travel experience that gives back to the place they’re heading to. However, not all volunteering is ethical, especially volunteering with children, including teaching children on a short-term basis, and working at so-called ‘orphanages’.
To be safe, avoiding working with children and instead volunteer your time to work at registered organisations that protect or conduct research on aspects of the environment, wildlife conservation, animal rescue, and so on. Tree planting, clean-up campaigns, habitat rehabilitation, land regeneration etc, all provide ethical volunteering opportunities.
W for Walking Everywhere
Walk, walk everywhere when you travel. We always walk as much as we can because we find walking by far a better way to get to know a place than catching a subway or even a local bus. We much prefer to walk kilometres in the fresh air, blue skies above, surrounded by beautiful architecture than to travel underground by train. Although public transport is handy for getting from one neighbourhood to another.
Walking tours with local experts are a wonderful way to get an introduction to a place, to dig deep and learn about the local history, culture and people while also getting your bearings and learning how to navigate a new destination. But I’m also a fan of the kind of flâneurie that Walter Benjamin wrote about in his epic Arcades Project and love wandering aimlessly through arcades and along laneways and boulevards, just soaking up the atmosphere, and taking in the street life.
Walking is also more eco-friendly. When you walk you tread lightly, leaving a much-reduced environmental footprint. (See ‘T’)
X for Embracing Xenophilia over Xenophobia
Choose xenophilia over xenophobia, a dislike of anything perceived as being strange and foreign, and the root of racism, social tensions and even hate crimes. Xenophilia is the opposite of xenophobia. Xenophilia is a love for and attraction to all things foreign, foreign cultures, foreign people, and foreign traditions and customs.
How can you go wrong by embracing xenophilia when you travel? You’re choosing to travel with a positive attitude that is automatically open to and appreciative of the places you’re visiting and the people that inhabit them, and their culture, traditions, and customs. I guarantee that you’ll find the locals are more welcoming of a xenophile over a xenophobe.
Y for Yes! Say Yes to Invitations
If you were raised by your family as I was – to have good manners, to be polite, and to decline invitations so as not to impose on people; as well as not to talk to strangers – you might find saying “yes!” to everything and accepting invitations a challenge at first, as I did once upon a time.
Once you start saying “yes!” – to everything from offers by market vendors to try different foods you’ve never sampled to invitations to people’s homes for a meal – you’ll find it starts becoming easier. You soon realise that people wouldn’t offer something they didn’t want you to try and wouldn’t invite you to their home if they didn’t want you to come.
By responding with a “yes!” instead of politely declining – even though you desperately want to try that strange exotic-looking fruit or see inside a local home – you’ll open yourself up to all kinds of new experiences. It could be something as simple as tasting new flavours and textures or a life-changing look at and deeper understanding of how very differently people live. You could also make new friends in the process.
Tip: learn about local etiquette and customs of the people in the places you’ll be spending time in so that you know what’s acceptable and what isn’t. Saying “no thanks” and declining an offer or invitation might be polite to you, but it can deeply offend people in many cultures.
Z for Zen Travel
For me, Zen travel is a form of travel that incorporates more serenity, self-reflection and tranquil moments into your travels – whether you’re sitting still in peaceful surroundings meditating or enjoying quiet moments of reflection, or you’re strolling parks, hiking forests, hugging trees, swimming in lakes, walking along beaches, or watching sunrises and sunsets.
Zen is the Japanese school of Mahayana Buddhism, the dominant form of Buddhism in China, the East Asian countries of Korea, Japan and Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and minorities in India and the Himalayas. Theravada is the form of Buddhism that spread from Sri Lanka to Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar.
The word ‘zen’ is said to come from the Chinese word ‘ch’an’, from the Sanskrit for ‘thought’, ‘absorption’ and ‘mediation’, which is the centre of Zen Buddhism. I’m not necessarily suggesting you spend your vacation at a Buddhist monastery meditating, chanting and scrubbing floors – although you could if you wish – all I’m recommending is that you take some quiet time for thought, absorption and mediation.
Tip: make time in your travels for moments of calm – don’t over-schedule, don’t cram your itinerary, leave space for serenity, and seek out tranquil places with few distractions. Whether you’re religious or spiritual or not, sacred places such as temples, pagodas and churches are perfect places for reflection, as are quiet parks and gardens, national park trails, and empty beaches. Do some forest bathing and tree-hugging and savour more sunrises and sunsets.
Please do let us know if you use our meaningful travel guide as a resource for planning your next trip and if you have any ideas to add we’d love to hear from you in the comments below.
If you enjoyed this, see our Experiential Travel Guide, our guides to Slow Travel (Our Best Budget Travel Secret) and Local Travel and Living Like Locals, tips to How to Meet Locals When You Travel, How to Be a Better Traveller and How to Be a Greener Traveller, and It’s Not Where to Travel But How to Travel.
You might also enjoy these posts on 20 Travel Lessons from 20 Years Living Abroad and Travelling the World, How We Created a Life Filled with Travel, How to Get Paid to Travel the World as a Travel Writer, At Home Anywhere and Having a Sense of Belonging Everywhere and tips to dealing with Reverse Culture Shock.
