When you travel, it is easy to strike up conversation with anyone with that golden ‘travel’ chat. There is a real mix of people; I have played a game of pool with a political major Harvard student and an unemployed crane driver from Brittany. This travel conversation is fine for the first few weeks but fairly tiresome after that. – Where are you going? Where have you come from? How long are you travelling for? etc. I feel like everyone should have a t-shirt with this information on, but then what would we talk about!?
Some interesting travelling types I have stumbled across:
1. ‘ I have been working in the party hostel for four months, got put on a drip twice and haven’t managed to see the city yet.’ These hostels ensure that you need not experience any culture whatsoever of the country, they come equipped with restaurants selling shepherds pie and bars selling Guinness.
2. Conversations which follow; ‘When I was hiking in Peru…, when I was living in Mongolia…, I ate fried dog in Ljiblistan.’ Tip: if you feel less travelled against such people; Lie about your adventures. Just make up foreign sounding names and add –stan to the end.
3. Travellers (I have been frequently informed that I fall under this category), who believe, re-gurgetate and probably twist all travelling tales, no matter how sublime – ‘did you hear 10 Brits were killed by a llama yesterday!?’
4. The guy who is travelling for a year and is taking photos of each meal, this equates to over 1000 photos (not including snacks).
5. The guy who whilst on a 3 hour bus ride, videos the view constantly. Sure his family are going to be thrilled with 180 minutes footage of mountains.
6. Speaking with people who have English as their second language, your standard of English rapidly decreases, I have caught myself saying: ‘I have been in Cusco yesterday and the shower was having cold water’, people may be impressed at your standard of English but much less so when they realise English is indeed your first language. You could take the plunge and pretend you speak Quechua as your first language; this could bring on complicated consequences.
7. The American guy walks into the bar, talks about himself for an hour, leaves a card with a topless photo of himself on and his contact details. Can’t knock the confidence.
8. The travellers who have taken the travelling clothing to the extreme and after 3 weeks away from their London office job are equipped with rasta dreadlocks, ankle and wrist bands, Guatemalan colourful trousers and fake alpaca jumpers!
Buen viaje!
