Why your travelling sucks.

Ten common mistakes and how to avoid them.

1. Lock your cameras away! Carrying a pen and a blank sheet of paper with you is ten times more effective.
2. An advice which most tourists internalized: Wear comfortable clothes. But that does not mean trainers, zip-off cargos, rainjackets and baseball caps!
   
3. Carrying much luggage won't get you far! Being equipped for every possible situation, no matter how likely it is to occur seems to be a need of many tourists. Point is, improvisation is not only challenging but certainly makes things more exciting. So turn your backpacks to where they belong: NOT in the front. And please leave your waist-pockets and camera bags at home.
   
4. Who told you to buy all these tourist articles? Wearing a Basque beret in Paris won't make you look French! Why don't you take the opportunity to buy these clothes that you can't get at home and which look hot as hell?
   
5. Burn your pocket travel guide and get a city map and metro lines tattooed!
   
6. Don't suppose everybody speaks English! At least trying to communicate in the local language makes you way more sympathic.
   
7. Get off that tourist sightseeing bus right now! Do what your feet were designed for: Walk! Or catch a metro like other sane people do.
   
8. Yes, yes, same old story... tourist restaurant prices are rip-off. But not to tip does not make anyone like tourists - it only confirms that you personally are a dick.
   
9. I know a photo in your tourist uniform in front of the Eiffel Tower seems such a romantic idea. But who the bloody hell wants to see it? The way you're standing there looks like you just wet your pants, the weather's shitty and the photographer does not know how to handle that digicam, apart from how to find the right camera angle? Do us all a favor and spare that picture out. Not only that you'll find hundreds of great Eiffel-Tower-photos on Flickr, but I'm sure your friends will believe you if you only TELL them you were in France.
   
10. So, my final advice does not work out with everyone, but if it doesn't, the others won't work as well. Supposing that you are really interested and eager getting to know another culture, another way of living, you as a traveller should make yourself distinct from tourists. Tourists are aliens and nobody likes them except for their money. Travellers who explore the world are always more likely to get hooked up in an interesting conversation that might tell you more that the 300 pages of your pocket guide!