The worst thing a traveller can do is to pack expectations about your destination before you even leave home.
That’s especially true if you’re determined to see everything through your own perception of what is “normal”.
Apart from setting yourself up for disappointment, you are missing an opportunity to learn. And even if your main objective is to have a good time, a holiday is wasted if you don’t learn something about the places you visit and the people you meet.
The thing to avoid is comparison. Too often, travellers are quick to label the places they visit based on spurious comparisons with home. They are are wary of the unfamiliar and often misjudge it as being abnormal. As if only they do and where they live can ever be “normal”.
Despite decades of television travel documentaries, and the entire content of world wide web, surprisingly many first-time travellers still have this perception that if the rest of the world isn’t just like home, it should be.
When in parts of Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and South America, some Western tourists decry the poor state of infrastructure and sanitation — apparently oblivious to the fact that widespread indoor plumbing was only a mid-20th century phenomenon in their own countries.
While it’s true that corruption is too common and the rule of law isn’t what it ought to be in many places, the complainants should take a long, hard look at their own nations before casting stones.
As I’ve noted before, some tourists behave appallingly while on holiday. They disrespect religious beliefs and treat local people with disdain.
No wonder many countries tolerate tourism only for its economic benefit. And no wonder that those who try to do the right thing sometimes face distrust and resistance.
The message is simple: don’t be the people in Monty Python’s Travel Agent sketch, complaining about the tea (“Oh they don’t make it properly here, do they, not like at home”), be adventurous and embrace the local brew.
I’m reminded of a conversation I had in a doctor’s waiting room with a 70-something man who’d just returned from Italy, on his first ever trip outside of Australia.
“You know,” he told me, “Australia is a great country. But it’s pretty good over there, too.”
