This was published 7 years ago
Should travellers ignore tips and advice from others?
Would you share the details of that amazing deserted beach you stumbled across?Credit: iStock
I watched as the little piece of paper was accepted, and then immediately folded up and tucked into the deep recess of a daypack, never to be seen again. All of those solid-gold tips, those locals-only gems, those hard-won nuggets of gastronomic knowhow, banished to the bottom of a bag without so much as a glance.
I realised then that this whole exercise had been a waste of time. Some people just don't want to be told where to go.
I'd forgotten that in my enthusiasm for delicious food and for sharing the love. I'd found out one of my travel companions was heading to Rome after our current trip, and I'd got excited. "I know the best places to eat!" I'd said, grabbing a notepad and a pen.
Would you want to know the best place for spaghetti alla vongole in Rome?
I wrote down seven or eight of my treasured tips, amazing restaurants that any visitor to Rome would dream of stumbling upon, a mental list I've amassed over the years thanks to recommendations I've received from various people who know what they're on about. These are tried and tested local gems. I've had some of the best meals of my life at these restaurants.
And, like the creepy guy in The Beach who passes on his directions to tropical paradise to Leonardo DiCaprio, I was ready to gift my restaurant list to another worthy traveller. Good karma and all that.
But I hadn't picked up the signs. My companion – let's call her Sarah – hadn't been anywhere near as enthusiastic about my tips as I'd been. She'd been grunting fairly uninterestedly as I'd told my tales of rigatoni carbonara and burrata with Calabrian anchovies. She'd smiled and nodded politely at my ranting about suppli and spaghetti alla vongole.
See: The unexpected home of Rome's tastiest food
Some travellers just don't like being told where to go. It's a weird thing to me, because I love getting tips on places I haven't been before. If someone has been somewhere and seen something great, or eaten something amazing, or discovered some little art gallery or bar or a weird museum, I want to know about it. I want to check it out for myself.
I'm extremely happy to take the collective wisdom of travellers I trust and turn it into a great experience of my own. You avoid the crowds at the guidebook-recommended spots. You save time on endlessly googling food blogs and travel sites to find the best places to go.
I enjoy the passing on of advice, too. It comes with the territory of being a travel writer: you want to share secrets of great destinations, you want your friends to experience something different and interesting that they might not otherwise give a try.
But some people just don't want to hear it. You start getting all excited about sharing your recommendations and then you realise that they're not even listening any more.
Why? I guess some people would prefer to discover things for themselves. There's a thrill in exploration, in flying blind when you travel, in knowing that that amazing place you stumbled upon was your discovery alone. You miss out on that if you just go with someone else's advice.
It's also a competitive thing, not wanting to admit that other people have already been and done the things you're planning to do. Travellers don't want to have to acknowledge that someone else has already discovered this great restaurant or this cozy bar every time they swing the doors open.
And of course there's a perfectly reasonable urge for some people to do things their own way, to go to the places they want to go rather than somewhere another person has enjoyed.
But what about the travellers passing on the advice? You have to admit that there's a certain amount of ego involved in giving these recommendations. It might partly be an altruistic need to share great experiences with the rest of the world, but there's also some small part of every traveller that wants to show off.
You want other people to visit the places you've recommended and then come back and tell you how amazing they were and how clever you are to have discovered them, so you can think to yourself, yeah, I do know the good places. I've got this travel thing down pat.
That's kind of what I was hoping Sarah would do, that she'd go to a few of those restaurants in Rome and then let me know what amazing finds they were. Good for her, good for me.
Except I'd failed to realise: some people just don't want to be told.
b.groundwater@fairfaxmedia.com.au
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