Ten New Year's resolutions every traveller should make

We’re sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. We’re working to restore it. Please try again later.

Advertisement

This was published 9 years ago

Ten New Year's resolutions every traveller should make

By Lance Richardson
Updated
Be careful what you pout for: Be judicious with your selfies when travelling in 2015.

Be careful what you pout for: Be judicious with your selfies when travelling in 2015.Credit: iStock

Another impending New Year, another opportunity to make a list of resolutions for a better life. Why not add travel to the slate? Like cooking or yoga, travel is a skill that can always be improved. Make 2015 the one where you go to those places you've always wanted to visit, becoming the travel expert you know you can be.

1. Rediscover the art of train travel.

At a time when it has become simple to jump from one place to another on a plane, the renaissance of train travel might seem fairly inexplicable. But trains are romantic in a way that planes will never be. Trains mean decent food in a dining car, and maybe a gin and tonic; conversation with strangers as a forest unfolds outside; one landscape sliding gradually into the next – prairies to mountains – showing how the world is all inter-connected. Amtrak in America is now offering writer's residences on their trains: Trains offer solitude and space to think. "I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it," wrote Paul Theroux, a man who knows travel nearly better than anyone.

Loading

2. Conduct a cost-benefit analysis before buying flights.

The ongoing erosion of airline standards has a simple cause. As long as people are willing to trade away comfort in the pursuit of cheaper tickets – legroom, drinks, headphones, meals, luggage – company executives will happily reduce their overhead.

But cheaper is not always better, particularly when it comes to long-haul travel; the fact is you end up paying the difference in jetlag.

Consider an airline upgrade. Illustration: Simon Letch

Consider an airline upgrade. Illustration: Simon Letch

Read airline reviews, survey amenities lists, and be willing to choose the slightly more expensive carrier if it means feeling better when you arrive at your destination. Your body will thank you for the upgrade.

Advertisement

3. Don't shy away from discomfort.

Imagine if Marco Polo and Herodotus declined to go travelling because they didn't want to get their hands dirty. We may not be legendary explorers ourselves, but the principle of interestingness still applies: If you want to see something unique you must be willing to open yourself to up being inconvenienced.

Leave the smartphone at home. Illustration: Simon Letch

Leave the smartphone at home. Illustration: Simon Letch

North Alaska means giant mosquitoes; Namibia means pitiless heat and sand in every crevice; the Himalayas mean breathlessness and sweat. People endure these bad things because the result is sublime. Indeed, the destination often seems enhanced, thrumming with significance, if getting there was hard-won.

The trend to swaddle everything from the Arctic to Machu Picchu in a blanket of luxury robs travel of its greatest delight – a sense of achievement.

4. Leave the smart phone at home.

Be daring.  Illustration: Simon Letch

Be daring. Illustration: Simon Letch

Developers in Silicon Valley have their sight set on "disrupting" travel and making experiences even more efficient. Apps like TripIt, PackPoint, Uber, and Entrain (for overcoming jetlag) have their uses, but an argument can also be made that technology ruins spontaneity and keeps you overly connected with home.

Try an experiment: forget smart phones, apps, and email for a week, and try to be connected to the world around you instead.

5. Be judicious when taking "selfies."

Just do it.  Illustration: Simon Letch

Just do it. Illustration: Simon Letch

The traveller's impulse to be photographed alongside Niagara Falls and the Mona Lisa has existed for nearly as long as affordable cameras.

The impulse to take a selfie, however, is a more recent development, and one that creates moral quandaries as Instagram fills up with selfies in war museums and concentration camps. As the name implies, a selfie is self-centred.

Cemeteries and memorials are about other people; they demand empathy and reflection. No matter how much filtering you apply to the photo, you never look good pouting next to somebody's grave.

6. Talk to people.

It's easy to drift through a foreign country without really speaking to anybody except other travellers and hotel clerks. But how much you miss if this is all you do.

A culture is more than the sum of its monuments – it lives and dies in people. Learn a few words in another language and strike up basic conversations; sit down to play chess with old men in a park; go to a bar and chat with a bartender; or use services like Sidetour to explore a city with local residents.

Lasting memories are made of encounters, not buildings and museums.

7. Do something that scares you.

It is often said that travel is about expanding horizons, and there is no better way to do that than through embracing fear.

Fear of heights? Bungee jump off Verzasca dam in Switzerland. Fear of sharks? Go cage diving in Cape Town. Fear of antiques? Go shopping in Hudson, New York. Not only will this help you conquer phobias while seeing the world, it has the makings of a great travel yarn for future dinner parties.

8. See more of Australia.

It is an easy mistake to overlook your own backyard.

Instead of Napa Valley, consider Clare. Instead of the Maldives, consider the Whitsundays. Hobart continues to shine as an underrated treasure; Kakadu is every bit as impressive as a place like Yellowstone. Minimise your carbon footprint, save travel time and support local industries.

9. Remember that Africa is not a single country.

Many people are guilty of doing this every now and then, even Isak Dinesen: "I had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills."

The continent of Africa is so vast and mysterious it is easy to minimise its diversity for the sake of convenience. But this is something like foreigners conflating Australia and New Zealand into one country – inaccurate and unfair. In truth there 47 countries in Africa (or 53, if you include several islands) and many of them are worth exploring in their own right, like Botswana, Rwanda and, for a real adventure, Ethiopia.

10. Go further.

Being satisfied with the world presented in travel brochures and cruise itineraries is something like stopping a meal after the entree has arrived. You are missing the best part.

Even Traveller, after years of reporting from far-flung places around the globe, has yet to tick off everything there is to see out there. So do the research, read for inspiration, and then go five steps beyond. Bicycle through Sri Lanka with no destination in mind. Rent a car and venture into the American West. Go to Italy and throw away the map, using your tastebuds as a guide. Come home with stories of fresh discoveries, then share them with your friends – and us.

What are your New Year's travel resolutions? Post your comments below.

Sign up for the Traveller newsletter

The latest travel news, tips and inspiration delivered to your inbox. Sign up now.

Most viewed on Traveller

Loading