James Mead is a popular internet influencer in China, but this definition may not be accurate for a real him, because he is also a doctor of astrophysics from Cambridge University, a lawyer, a manager, an energetic enthusiast in rowing sports & training dogs & learning Chinese, he loves travel and definitely has a very multidimensional life.
For many aspects I am quite agree with him, for example, some travel tips and experiences he shared just like what exactly in my mind. So here I put down the below words mostly from his collections, hope can give you some hints for your own travel.
Some travelling traps you may fall into:
- Thinking that things will look as good in person as they do on the photos
Actually we should know that everything is perfectly curated online, often photoshopped, so when you arrive there, it actually can be a serious disappointment.
- Travel more would make us get more.
Travel now has almost become a competition in and of itself, when we turn it into a competition, we often lose a lot of what makes it magical.
When we compete to travel as many destinations as possible, when we travel for the purpose of showing off to people about how well traveled we are, it becomes more like work than pleasure. We start doing it for extrinsic reasons versus intrinsic reasons, and that will devalue the experience.
- Travel need perfect plan
It’s good to plan, but when you are desperate to maximize every single percentage point of enjoyment, you spend hours and hours researching and hours and hours queuing, just always trying to find the maximal experience, squeeze every bit out of it, sometimes that can be detrimental as well.
Maybe we should go more with an attitude of play and openness and flexibility, something that’s very different from an attitude that we might bring to our jobs to get the most out of travel.
And beside, some accidents or unplanned experiences will bring you real surprise, and impressive your rest life, that’s also big value of travel it would bring to you.
- Travel would automatically change people
People who travel because they think it will change them fundamentally in some way,
Travel does have the ability to expose you to new ideas new ways of thinking and have profound implications for how you approach life. But for many people, they expect just by traveling to certain destinations, it will change who they are by some kinds of osmosis or absorption of the local atmosphere, it’s rarely the case.
There’s a famous quote, where you go, there you are.Whether you’re sitting on a beach in Maldives, standing in front of the pyramids in Egypt, your anxieties, your baggage, your worries, your good points, your bad points-they will stay with you, they haven’t change.
In order to truly change yourself, you have to use what you learn from travel to interrogate your philosophy on life, it doesn’t happen automatically.
How we can do to improve our travel experiences and create most memorable experiences.
- Learn before you go.
Perhaps travel doesn’t change people as much as they think, but it can change you, it requires effort before you visit. Study the local culture, learn a few words of the local language, read their history, when you arrive there, it will have a bigger impression on you, because you’ve already trained and prepared your brain for what’s about to occur. And also you’ll find that local people are much more receptive, will talk to you a lot more, many more opportunities will crop up for you to enjoy.
When you did preparation for travel, you will find there’s huge impact that seeing the sites had on you, it wasn’t like you are leaning them for the first time completely out of context, you know what they are, you know their significance, and a lot of information behind them, therefore you could engage with them on a much deeper level. The more you can deeply engage with something, the more likely you are to change your way of thinking about the world. If you just engage about things on an aesthetic or superficial level or just Daka, it won’t change anything.
- Consider People before places
Anywhere in the world is fantastic if you are with the right people. If with people you love and enjoy, you don’t have to leave your front door, you don’t have to go traveling. We often feel we have to escape away to achieve a brilliant experience, but you can have a fantastic experience right here at home, if you focus more of your time on the people who make you happy and the people who you love and love you. However, a travel experience can be a really good way of deepening bonds through shared experiences, it takes yourself out of the daily life, and can help you understand the people in your life better.
In traveling, if you focus on people rather than the place, you will find that you would not be stressed out about seeing all the sites, you are not dashing around, you just simply focus on spending as much time as you could with the people that you love, and your travel would be filled with happiness.
- change stereotypes of people and places.
Historically, a lot of problems have been caused for humanity by viewing people as the other by being very different, you may think they are different from people around you, you don’t share anything in common, they are not the humans as you are, therefore, it’s very easily to be scared of them or even treat them badly, but when you go to their country, spend time with them, laugh and joke with them, and eat their food and travel around them, you will understand that all people are fundamentally the same. Travel is a fantastic way of breaking down those prejudice and fears. Travel to different places and see different people, you will not feel scared of places in the world or what’s happening in the world, you feel much more empathetic to other people.
So if you are scared of a particular region or you are nervous or whatever, provided it’s safe to do so, traveling there can be a great way of curing that problem.
- Expose yourself as much as you can to locals
Living overseas is not a natural period of osmosis, or it doesn’t mean you are necessarily going to benefit from it.
When you live to a place, read its history, study its culture, try to make as many local friends as possible, try to work in local environment, use local language as possible as you can….as you force yourself to live more locally, you will find that that’s the way you change your philosophy on life, and the way you change your character through travel.
If you do get the opportunity to go abroad for a period of time, do you best to throw yourself in , leave your domestic culture behind you, do as the Romans do, that might be the most beneficial and positive travel experience of them all.
As I totally agree with what James Mead said, the way I introduce my place Sichuan or Chengdu would be based on these philosophies, I would try to let you understand stories behind what you see and experience, I would try to help you engage with local people and communities, I would try to communicate with you about thoughts from you and our people, I would not make a very seamless plan for you and avoid any surprises, I would try to read what you really want and give you what respond to your heart and desire.
That’s what I work for, real communication from different background, deep comprehension to our nature, people, and society. But don’t worry, what I try to endeavor is also include make all happen naturally, so we can really enjoy our travel and life together.
Read more:
Lonely Planet | Travel Guides & Travel Information
