The GTG’s top 10 things to take with you that don’t weigh a thing :)
Welcome back from one of our shortest sabbaticals in a while globetrotters! With so much focus on keeping our luggage to a bare minimum, and no current season of the biggest loser for us to either love or hate, your GTG thought it might worthwhile to explore some assets that customs (or sniffer dogs) won’t be able to find anywhere 🙂
Scale – Guess where San Diego (Photo credit: SoCalFan)
- Recipes– When cashing in on a free place to stay, the surest way to be invited back and leave a lasting (good) impression is to have (at least) one dish you can make that you know is a crowd pleaser.
- Anecdotes– To ensure others find our travel as entertaining as we do, (and to stop us from being overwhelmed when people ask us how our trip was) pick a selected couple of your favourite tales of the road that will pass a pleasant evening along the way and maybe even lead to some great new stories for you to enjoy. Part 2 of this idea is to remember which occasions you told which stories and who was there at the time to avoid repeating yourself :).
- A Skype Account– Both free and weightless, this is a great way to keep in touch with people as you go along, and is becoming even easier to access.
- Travel insurance- While admittedly for some trips (many in fact) I haven’t bothered, it is always a good consideration of what your safety net might be without it.
- An obscure fact about your home town/country– You may end up places where the locals have never even seen anyone who looks like you (or I’m told these places still exist anyway), so many facts we assume as common knowledge may be a trivial pursuit piece of pie elsewhere. This would also have worked the other way around but as the curious bunch we are it is highly likely we have done a bit of homework.
- An impressive phrase in the local lingo– This can pay off in so many ways, not least by endearing you to the locals and opening up new experiences.
- Some killer dance moves– No one wants to be shown up on a dance floor wherever you are, and of course how the local population get down is one of the many fun and different things to explore.
- Basic Geographical reference points– Of course many more of these will be learned along the way but a particular memory of a rather un-prepared (or unobservant) traveler at Edinburgh train station asking me if London was the same thing as Glasgow screams three words- don’t go there.
- A full bill of health– While there may be little you have control over at times, leaving home in good shape can alleviate all kinds of hassle and stress.
- An open mind– What would a GTG top 10 be without a cliché full of cheese? 🙂 Having an open mind can deter the nasty effects of culture shock, help you make new friends and meet people, while also maximizing the overall diversity of your trip.
On that note, here at your GTG less is definitely more, so happy reading, trot lightly and until next week.
Year of the Pig [Yuyuan Shopping Center / Shanghai] (Photo credit: d’n’c)
