Nizwa Oman
Researching travels beforehand is damn important.
Digital nomads need to be prepared.
But almost no travel blogger tells you this: you need to read the room after arriving by observing locals and the environment with laser precision.
Does that type of post dominate Google?
Hell no!
Is this skill far more important than reading words on a screen from halfway around the world?
Yep.
I have been a digital nomad since 2011.
I have visited 42 countries:
- Fiji
- New Zealand
- Australia
- Taiwan
- The Philippines
- Japan
- Indonesia
- China
- South Korea
- Laos
- Myanmar
- VietnamÂ
- Thailand
- Cambodia
- Malaysia
- India
- Sri Lanka
- Nepal
- Qatar
- UAE
- Oman
- Cyprus
- TurkeyÂ
- Greece
- Italy
- Sweden
- Denmark
- Belgium
- France
- the Czech RepublicÂ
- Germany
- EnglandÂ
- Scotland
- Peru
- PanamaÂ
- Costa Rica
- El Salvador
- Nicaragua
- Canada
- Iceland
- AmsterdamÂ
- USA
I have visited 28 US states:
- New Jersey
- Maine
- New Hampshire
- Vermont
- Connecticut
- Massachusetts
- Rhode Island
- Pennsylvania
- New York
- Maryland
- Delaware
- Virginia
- West Virginia
- North Carolina
- South Carolina
- Florida
- Georgia
- Tennessee
- Ohio
- Indiana
- Illinois
- Wisconsin
- Minnesota
- South Dakota
- Wyoming
- Colorado
- Kansas
- Missouri
Far and away, being highly vigilant of:
- people
- environments
- local cultures
- local customs
- local behaviors
- local wildlife
in these spots is the most important traveling skill to develop.
Research is sometimes off. At times, due diligence is highly inaccurate. Forget about the time element. Some places are flat out different from the information offered by travel bloggers because life is entropy, being fully unpredictable.
Nicaragua: From the High Life to the ‘Hood
We did a house sit in an upscale neighborhood in Granada, Nicaragua.
Rubbing shoulders with the big dawgs felt nice.
We counted lawyers, doctors and other well-heeled types as our neighbors.
But the tour guides never mentioned how the ‘hood is a short 4 minute walk from this ritzy neighborhood.
I figured that one out myself after paying close attention to my surroundings. Being from northern New Jersey, my “Hood Spidey Sense” tingled the moment I turned one corner.
Now, the page 1 information I extracted from Google noted how petty theft is quite common across various parts of Nicaragua. Everyone pretty much has iron gates behind heavy doors.
But a homeless dude fished my flip flops out of the living room with a 10 foot long branch while I made lunch in the kitchen, 2 rooms away.
I had to experience that in person to prep myself for future forays into the kitchen.
Never mind a colorful episode where I stumbled around a rough neighborhood with a drunk local begging for cigarettes, me offering my Gringo Spanglish as he did his best Oliver Twist impersonation, looking for cigs.
I wound up bringing him to the local pulperia. I offered to buy him an orange. He told me that he preferred beer. I politely declined. We went our separate ways.
My point is this: I paid exquisitely close attention to this drunk dude, to his family (when he brought me back to his modest, dirt floor abode), and to locals, a few of which eyed me up and down wondering what the f*** a gringo was doing in this neck of the Nica woods.
Paying attention to your surroundings is the most important travel skill. But most travel bloggers never cover that topic because it does not rank well on Google.
Hey; I do not blame travel bloggers. I understand what pays their bills. Hats off to them.
But Blogging From Paradise is no normal blog.
I technically run a blogging tips themed blog, with the odd travel post sandwiched in from time to time.
Yet you guys know by now that I do things quite unlike the rest of the blogging world.
I cover topics most important to you not popular to the masses.
I value your experience not your pocketbook.
Again; I condemn no one who reverses those motivators.
I just think differently. That’s all.
Read the Freaking Room
About 11 months ago, my wife and I landed in Glasgow, Scotland. We had to read the room a few hours after arriving. I barely understood one lady working the local breakfast haunt when she asked if we would be eating in or taking out. Her terminology and heavy accent confused me. Was she speaking English?
Turns out, she was, but I had to pay close attention to her mannerisms, tone and facial expression to understand her. I communicated with her effectively not because I read some guide from a well-known travel blogger. That and a few pounds will get ya around the London Tube for a wee trip.
I had to 100% focus my full attention and energy on a fellow human being in the travel location to not only experience the trip, but to navigate my way around a different:
- culture
- accent
- custom
- version of English, in terms of wording
I then had to read the folks in Thornton Heath, London, 3 weeks later. Then I had to read the folks in Kalkan, Antalya and Kas, Turkey, 3 weeks later. Then I had to read the folks all over England 2 months later.
Now I need to read the room in rural New Jersey. People here in the sticks think, feel and behave differently than meat suits in my native Union County, being one of the most population dense regions of the most population dense state in the USA.
I tuned in to folks from Cape Cod, last week, then Brooklyn, 2 weeks prior.
Research Is Important But…..
…..paying attention to:
- people
- surroundings
- culture
- customs
- wildlife
is far more important once you arrive to your travel location.
Do your homework. Prepare yourself. Get things lined up. Get your due diligence in order, pre-trip.
Proceed to be highly mindful after arriving to fully enhance your experience.
Here in rural New Jersey, we are house sitting on a 40 acre farm down a 1/2 mile long driveway.
We have all types of wildlife on the grounds including:
- deer
- coyotes
- foxes
- beavers
- minks
The dog we’re caring for sprinted after a coyote early this morning.
Since I paid attention to note the abundant wildlife here – certainly not covered on the travel blogger circuit since Stockton is a highly rural, sleepy town well away from any remotely popular tourist spots – I knew to keep the poodle close enough to the house for her not to sprint off after the ‘yote into the street. Mind you, Haley’s Comet comes through more frequently than local traffic. Yet I avoided a potentially dangerous situation by……drum roll please…..reading the room.
So.
Do it!
