Connecting With Locals on Your Travels
One of the most rewarding and satisfying things of travelling is getting to know the local people and their habits. It really doesn’t matter where you go; even in the different regions of your own country, the locals may have a different approach to certain things. I consider this to be an extremely valuable advantage of travelling. There is so much you can learn from other people. One of my favorite quotes is by Bill Nye and goes like this: “Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t”. A quote couldn’t be truer.
The best way to meet locals and talk to them is to hang out in the places where they hang out. Get away from the tourist attractions or bars and hit the local markets and pubs. Find that hidden square in the city centre where you are the only foreigner. Those places will probably not be in tourist brochures and you will have to find them yourself. Exploring new places on my own happens to be one of my favorite travel activities. I have met several local people that way, spent time with them and shared meals with them. All of them gave me priceless insights in their countries and taught me things I would otherwise never have learned.
In my late teens, I spent some time as a seasonal fruit picker and lived in the backyard of an Aussie couple. I met this older guy at a food stall where a local farmer was selling fresh strawberries and we started talking. He told me I was welcome to pitch my tent at his house and use his kitchen and bathroom. I ended up staying there for a month. Luckily for me he and his wife also knew the neighbouring farmers, which resulted in me earning a lot of extra money. That experience showed me what life in rural Australia is like.
About a year ago I was travelling in rural Sweden (with a boy). Somewhere in the vast woods of Sweden, I somehow met an old lady who was still running a farm with her husband. She offered me a bed for the night, which I gladly accepted. Later I was also invited to dinner in their kitchen cabin. She spoke perfect English and we chatted all evening. I will never forget the glass of birch sap I got to drink and the cake she baked me in the morning. She taught me all about life in rural Sweden, how to scare off bears and about what happened in Sweden during the Second World War. Now I still think back on that evening and night in a cabin in the Swedish woods. That was definitely one of the most memorable travel experience I have ever had.
Those are two examples of times when I met and got to know locals, in very different environments. Both were times when I got away from the beaten track and headed to rural areas, not regularly visited by tourists. That is where the real unforgettable travel experiences are to be had.
If you’re not confident talking to strangers, travel will definitely help you gain that confidence. Whn you travel, you have to rely on people to help you out in all sorts of little ways e.g., explain how to use a Japanese ATM. However, increasingly there are services aimed at connecting people with locals. The aptly named “Withlocals” does this for travel in Asia, where you go book meals with locals or one on one tours and activities based on your interests. This seems perfect for places like India, where the food eaten at home is different, nicer and healthier than restaurant food.
The market for this is huge as more an more people recognize that these are some of the most phenomenal travel experiences. As the internet makes people more sophisticated about planning their trips, people are also wanted to go beyond sardine like bus tours and have a more personalized experience with they travel.
Post written in association with Withlocals. Photos courtesy of Withlocals.
