Friday, February 5, 2010

Being a tourist without feeling like a tourist

I know, I know, you’re traveling to a foreign country and you want to see all the tourist sights. I understand, I’ve done the same and I still visit the big, popular attractions when I go. Of course, if you’re on an escorted tour like the fabulous ones offered by Great Explorations Tours [ www.GreatExplorationsTours.com], you don’t have much choice but to visit all of the tourist sights. So by now you’re probably asking yourself two questions; If I’m seeing all the tourist sights how am I not supposed to feel like a tourist? And what is the point of this post?

First, the point: In my experience, many, and probably most, travelers on escorted tours get driven to the sight in question, get told some background info, maybe take a tour, pose for pictures, then get back on the bus and move on to the next sight. I strongly feel that this qualifies as seeing the sight, but not experiencing anything in particular. What’s the key difference between experiencing and seeing? Time.

On my tours I encourage people to take some time to walk around, find a bench, or even come back on their own later. Sadly that’s not always possible due to time constraints, but I do my best to allow it as much as possible. One of the ways we do that is by staying in hotels that are located near the attractions (see my post on Hotels for much, much more). That way our travelers can walk to many of the sights on their own and at their own pace.

Another way we allow a better experience is by offering walking tours wherever possible. On foot everything moves a little slower and you can feel the energy of the city in ways you can’t from the bus. Walking gives you time to look into a shop, or notice the fantastic architecture of a building, or buy some food from a street vendor. This is all part of the experience.

Now to fully answer the other question I posed above, how to not feel like a tourist. I answered some of this already, but I want to expand on it a little more. Many of my best memories of traveling are not from the major tourist sights; they are from the little things that happen along the way. Sometimes you are in a café, or wandering around a garden, or sitting in front of a famous monument, but you are struck by something that doesn’t show up in pictures. What you have to do is maximize your chances of having these moments and to do that you need to break free from the crowd.

I see a lot of people only go where the crowds go. I’ll use the lovely Italian city of Florence as an example: People are all around the Duomo and Piazza della Signora, then they wander over to the Ponte Vecchio and look around in all the souvenir shops. These places are all wonderful and are must sees on any visit, but boy can they be crowded. Now let’s say you walk across the Ponte Vecchio and into the Boboli Gardens on the other side of the Arno River. The gardens can have quite a few people in them too, but most of those people stay near the entrance to a very large garden complex. If you spend a few minutes walking you can easily come upon a lonely spot. Do you want an even better example? Go a little further southeast along the river and find your way up to the Piazzale Michelangelo. It’s a little bit of a walk, but because of that it is much less crowded and affords some very nice views.

Even if you don’t want to go to such lengths, just walk away. See the sights, and then just walk around. Trust me, you will find an out of the way street or café or pub that you can just enjoy.

I know many people are afraid of wandering around a strange city for fear of getting lost (or worse). Luckily, if you travel with me and Great Explorations Tours, I give you maps and helpful suggestions about where you can go to avoid some crowds and still be safe. My goal is to allow everyone to truly experience everywhere we go. It’s not enough for me to check off the proverbial list of sights, and it shouldn’t be for you either.




I just wanted to add a few more things on to this (relatively short) post. These are just some bits and pieces of thoughts.

- For the record, my favorite places anywhere are sitting at a table outside with a beer or glass of wine. I love to just sit there and watch people go by, especially if it’s on a nice square, piazza, place, or platz. There you get an interesting mixture of locals and tourists and yes, it is very easy to tell the difference.

- As for the monuments and major tourist sights. There are a lot of things that everyone should try to see at least once, but these are some of my favorites and the ones I can go back to over and over:

- The Pantheon, Rome – so old and so mathematically perfect
- Michelangelo’s David at the Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence – most impressive sculpture ever.
- The Rock of Cashel, Ireland – Mostly in ruins but there is something still so important feeling about it
- Versailles, France – So beautiful and so historically amazing
- Weiskirche, Bavaria, Germany – Most lavishly beautiful church I’ve ever seen
- Neuschwanstein, Bavaria, Germany – A castle in the hills. Best setting of any castle in the world
- Tower of London – Massive in size and history

- I’m not a big souvenir person. I am usually happy with my pictures, but I do buy souvenirs for others so I’ve looked at a lot of them. Not surprisingly, there is a lot of junk and the stuff that’s not junk can be pricey. I’m not going to try to tell people what they should and shouldn’t buy, except for one thing I want to mention. There are a lot of stands and shops that sell shirts with the country’s name on it. There is nothing wrong with these but it really grinds my gears when people buy shirts that say Germany (for example). Why does it bother me? Because the Germans call their country Deutschland, not Germany, so those shirts are solely for English speaking tourists. You can find shirts that say Deutschland, so please, for my sanity, buy those.

That’s it, time for more plugging. If you want to really feel like a traveler (or see the sights I’ve listed as my favorites) you can go with me by traveling with Great Explorations Tours [ www.GreatExplorationsTours.com].

I just posted the dates for our fall tours, see them here:

[ Discover Scotland – 6 night tour of Edinburgh and the Highlands

[ Mediterranean Italy – 7 nights along the Amalfi Coast and the Isle of Capri

[ Bavaria, Germany – 7 nights seeing Munich and the Alps

[ London Plus – 7 nights in London, Bath, and Oxford