Dive into the History

Dive into the history before you even leave for the trip. You may even decide to add or change some plans of the trip to learn or discover more about the specific piece of culture or history there, based on what you learned during your search.

This can help you not only plan a better trip- but also make your trip more meaningful when you are there. There are tons of blogs and fellow travelers (like me) that love to share the cool facts and cool experiences that can help you with your research. Another thing that can help you dive more into the histroy is to:

Visit a library during your trip

Even if you’re not staying long, or even if you don’t speak the language of the place that you are visiting- visit a library. Depending on where in the world you are visiting, it will be more and less difficult to find one, but in many cases it will be worth it! 

Think about your library at home. Sure, plenty of the books held in that library will be found in countless other libraries. But- there is a special feel to each library that is unique. As you visit libraries in different countries, you will see great differences in the feel and set-up of the libraries. And, there are certain sections of books in each library that are unique about the area that you’re in. I wrote a whole article about why you should visit libraries during your travels so check that article out.

Talk to the Locals

Even though it may seem a bit scary, talking to the locals is probably the quickest and most effective way to be immersed in the culture of an area, after just being there. 

In my experience, if you are respectful and show genuine interest in someone’s culture, you will find that they will be happy to tell you about what makes their culture special! Along with that, it is likely that they will want to share with your their favorite spots in their town, or their favorite restuarant. Plus you make new friends from across the world while you’re at it! Talking to the locals- learning about them- will transform your travels.

I’ll give an example of this with a story.

While exploring the small village of Riquewihr near the east border of France, my friend Liz Beckwith and I were exploring the touristy shops that lined the city center street. We had learned about some of the cultural traditions and history of Colmar, and we had learned about some of the traditional dress.

Now my friend Liz wanted so badly to see some of the old traditional dress in real life. She also had a love for the artist called Hanzi that is a great figure for those in Colmar. While we were exploring the town of Riquewihr we were on the lookout for originals done by Hanzi. we stumbled upon this small store hidden away in a corner.

We saw some of the traditional dress through the window and suddenly became excited. Then we entered the shop. A great guy named Frank greeted us, and we asked him if he had any paintings from Hanzi. He did!

As Liz was looking through the paintings, we started up a conversation with Frank. He started to tell us about his shop, why he opened it, and what it meant to him. His grandparents had owned tons of artifacts and he inherited them. He had artifacts in his store hundreds and hundreds of years old. We asked him why he was selling them- and he told us that he wasn’t.

He then explained that he was showcasing them more than anything. The only things in his shop that he was willing to sell was some of the paintings, and some of the dishes, and the rest was there because he had all of these things that were important to him and to his culture, and he wanted to share it with others. He told us that it was an amazing experience to have a “free museum” like this and to share stories about his town and his culture to those who visited.

I tell more about this story in my article called The Coolest Thing that Happened to Me in Riquewihr France, so go check that out.

Take it Slow

Even if you don’t have much time to travel (Because let’s be real, we have lives and jobs and not endless amounts of cash to travel for long periods of time) there are still plenty of ways to slow down your travel and to make it more meaningful.

This comes with all of the other points in this article- but it’s important that if we are doing these things- talking to the locals, visiting libraries, and diving into the history- that we take it slow. If we rush through all of these things- we could miss out on a big part of the magic of travel. It could do the exact opposite of our goal and could take the meaning out of traveling. If it’s all about how many countries we can visit or how many likes our instagram posts will get, it can ruin what traveling is all about.

If we slow down and take out the stress- and give time to the unexpected adventures that arise- that is where true meaning will be found in traveling.