Travel The World Like A Local
Travel The World Like A Local

Destinations

Travel Destinations

Here is a section to help you choose your travel destinations, get a rough idea of the different continents/countries you want to travel to.

Read also the advice about the Best Time For Travelling in the Before Travelling section.

What’s on this page?

Travel Destinations page content: 

Choosing Cheap Destinations

Like I mention in the Travel Budget page, this is about choices but also money. If I were you, I wouldn’t reduce the time of your trip because of money issue, I would just pick cheaper countries. You could always go again travelling to the other ones when you have a higher budget.

If Europe (at least Western), the United States, Australia or New Zealand are on your list, then it is about doing more camping and saving on transport (2 areas of spending more expensive than in other continents).

Read more about some Travel Costs per Countries in the budget section.

Choosing Less Travelled Countries

Choose countries that receive less tourists have many advantages:

  • more authentic feeling as the locals you will meet are less used to receive tourists
  • off beaten track, feeling like you are the first going to some places
  • cheaper in a way because tourists mean special tourist prices
  • less chances to make touristy mistakes because you might have to travel the local way anyway

Here are some tools and reports to find out about that:

– The World Bank International Tourists Arrivals Dynamic Table

– UNWTO Tourism Highlights 2016 Edition (PDF) (more up to date)

Choosing by Weather, Follow the Seasons

On a long trip you will have to visit places off season (or you will fly a lot but we said we won’t do that ;), it is all fine, just pick a place where the rainy season doesn’t mean flooding and raining crazy all day long.

Here are some websites to help you understand a bit more how seasons and climate work around the world. They are not perfect nor the most modern looking things but it is as good as it gets so far (that I’m aware of).

Information websites:

http://www.thebesttimetovisit.com/
Choose a location and learn about the best time to visit it or pick a month and discover what’s the best at this time of the year.

http://www.climatestotravel.com/
A bit the same concept, slightly older looking but quite complete information.

https://weatherspark.com/
A very precise website giving lots of information about (temperature, precipitation, cloud coverage, etc.)

Interactive maps:

http://www.climatemps.com/
A colourful crazy looking map giving you many details on many places, from the basic ones to more specific ones for the main spots (average sunlight per hour, sea temp, relative humidity %, etc.).

http://www.worldreviewer.com/world-weather/
Set your daily min / max temperature and the average daily rainfall you want and the map shows you where it is too hot, too cold and too wet according to you criteria.

Choosing Countries You Share The Language With

There are many ways to communicate with people and you will be fine all around the world but yes it will make a difference. Sharing things with locals is the way to go when travelling. Getting information (Read Travel Information Like A Local), sharing stories, joking, understanding their cultural differences, asking questions and them understanding it, etc.

I spent a lot of time in Asia, loved it and I won’t be the one telling you not to go but I have to admit that my trip in South/Central America brought me way deeper into the locals world thanks to sharing the Spanish language.

This obviously apply even more if you are a solo traveller.

All About Balance

Travelling long term needs you to balance everything if you want to last long happy. All right, if you feel like coming back home then do it, there is no point staying for the sake of carrying on but there are few keys (at least for me) that help you feeling as good as the start until the end. This is not about tricking yourself in order to carry on doing something you wouldn’t have done otherwise. Balancing things in life is natural, everyone needs it and does it naturally in their “normal” daily life so you should do it too while travelling.

  • Balancing beach/cities/countryside/mountains, etc;
  • Balancing active sporty times with relaxing ones
  • Balancing party times with more quiet days
  • Balancing very social times with some time for yourself, on your own
  • Balancing comfort with no comfort
  • Balancing good weather with a good dose of shitty weather

Cities Vs Countryside

This is all about taste (and balance again) of course. Some cities are really worth a visit in some parts of the world but you need to understand that you will often spend more money there.

  • Accommodation is often more expensive
  • There are more temptations and occasions to spend money
  • More places you have to pay to visit
  • More transports to take

I did enjoy many cities with some real culture heritage in South/Central America but a bit less in Asia and Africa to be honest. The main reason I visit cities is to get a shoot of busy local atmosphere and do some people watching (admitting you are in the right local part of the city, not in the touristy area): local markets, parks, business districts, etc. Apart from that, what else?

  • Is there a real attraction of the town? Architectural heritage?
  • Is it mainly for eating out and partying?

Just saying it because I have seen many tourists (travellers?) getting stuck in some cities and I sometimes had a hard time to understand why. Especially harder to understand when coming from Europeans, where many cities have something special about history / architecture / culture, etc.

To me, cities are good and required hubs to pass by to get another feeling of the local life and then get out to the next wilder nature spot.

Follow Water Stream & Rivers

Spots around oceans, seas and lakes are well known and easily considered when looking for places of interest but we sometimes forget about other water streams. Rivers are the areas of highest biological diversity on earth and are a very good pick when looking for discovering a country, its fauna and flora.

Rivers are also the earth most intense human activity so travelling along them will help you meet lots of local people.

Rivers can be really polluted so a good trick is to look where it begins and visit areas closer to its source than where it ends.

ATW Travel Itinerary

There are plenty of good ATW itineraries so I won’t give you a list of countries to follow month by month, etc.
My main advice here would be to check the different weather seasons!

This is one of the only criteria I based my overall plan for my trip. It is important to know where it is ok to be off season (weather-wise) and where it is not. Sometimes it is a good thing to be off season as you get less tourists and the landscape is usually greener. Rainy season doesn’t mean that it rains all day long, it often means heavy downfall at some point of the day and then stop. Well, not everywhere though, I wouldn’t try to be in some place in India for the monsoon (too hot, too polluted, electricity breakdown, raining crazy for days).

I personally like and try to be just behind the rainy season, everything is greener, it is not too hot yet but it doesn’t rain anymore!

Read also the advices about the Best Time For Travelling in the Before Travelling section.