How to travel

{"text":[[{"start":4.39,"text":"Word reaches me that much of the civilian population, as a result of having school-age children, must take their holidays in the summertime. I never know how much to believe these occasional dispatches from the frontline, such as the persistent rumour that some people make use of their home kitchens. Regardless, this might be a good moment to share with readers a few thoughts on how to travel. "}],[{"start":30.38,"text":"First, the journey itself. Carry-on is a mistake. The time saved in baggage claim at the other end isn’t worth the stress of finding overhead storage space. Even for business class passengers, with their dedicated lockers, it is still better to move around an airport unencumbered. This is meant to be a break, not arm day. Also, dress smartly. A jacket and formal shoes will win you (undeservedly) better treatment, including during any brush with officialdom. You will stand out all the more at this time of year, when most travellers are got up like John Candy in Summer Rental."}],[{"start":72.31,"text":"And so to the destination. What have I learned over the years about how to get the most from a trip?"}],[{"start":78.4,"text":"Do more writing than reading. Keep a journal while abroad. At no other point in the year are you able to look at your own life with such detachment. The geographic separation from home is hard to simulate. So is the introspection that often sets in during air travel. (The so-called Mile Cry Club.) You need not diarise the rest of the time — I don’t — to scribble copiously, and penetratingly, during these few weeks. As nice as it is to work through a reading list while away, that can be done at home. The self-scrutiny can’t. "}],[{"start":115.18,"text":"YouTube is the best travel aid in the world. For each destination, down to the neighbourhood and sometimes the street, there is a video or entire channel. If the presenter is a nuisance, just mute them. The point is to see the physical reality of another place in high definition. This can’t be gleaned from even the finest, VS Naipaul-grade travel writing. Or from TV shows of the Alan Whicker and Anthony Bourdain type, which are too generalist, if not also too staged. (A star with a professional camera crew can’t move through a place without subtly warping it.) Then there is the matter of up-to-dateness. Mainstream content takes a while to come out. A YouTuber’s walk through a street can be live."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

It is better to be merely ignorant of a place than confidently wrong about it

"}],[{"start":163.87,"text":"Beware the “authentic” experience. This is the ultimate intellectual trap. At least in countries with a decent-sized middle class, “real” life will be less distinctive than the visitor hopes or imagines. In much of south-east Asia, it is authentic behaviour to spend time in malls. First, because these are air conditioned. Second, because countries with fresh memories of being poor tend not to regard material consumption with ennui or distaste. By all means, in Bangkok, ride the canal boat. But don’t kid yourself that it is truer to local experience than taking mass transit from a suburban new-build to a nine-hour office shift. In a Gulf city, do visit the “old town”. But remember that it is the old town precisely because it is divorced from how lives are lived now. "}],[{"start":226.12,"text":"If an Asian visitor cycled through Paris in a striped top and an onion necklace, saying “ooh là là” at intervals, we wouldn’t think, “There goes someone who has mastered the local culture.” We’d know that real Parisians are doing banal things. But westerners, especially the educated ones, can make the same error of over-romanticisation in other places. It is the supposed suckers in the tourist traps who are often clearer-headed about what they want and are getting out of their trip."}],[{"start":258.62,"text":"It is a point that flows into the largest of all lessons about travel. Don’t expect it to be educational. At worst, it can go the other way, in that you over-index what you happen to see in person. (“I went to Russia and it was sweetness itself,” was a widely heard sentiment between the 2018 World Cup and the war in Ukraine.) It is better to be merely ignorant of a place than confidently wrong about it. If you travel a fair bit, those who don’t can go all sheepish and deferent around you. This advantage is unwarranted, which isn’t to say I make no use of it."}],[{"start":301.75,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftmailbox.cn/album/a_1754126898_4799.mp3"}