A Free, Independent Traveler's
Goals & Characteristics
This 'independent traveler' seeks immersion, while the tourist seeks diversion.
I. GOALs of a (FIT) free independent traveler!
The solo traveler seeks the true essence of a culture; it's famous as well as tourist-ignored historical, cultural & natural wonders AND equally compelling, its ‘down-in-the-dirt’ gritty underbelly.
They obsessively explore the sights, smells & sounds swirling around them: Barcelona's Sagrada Familia's soaring colorful towers, an Indian street-food vendor's tantalizing aromas, and an Italian village's Mediterranean shore's lapping waves.
A FIT traveler is NOT a tourist. The ‘tourist’ pretends ‘ to ‘experience the culture’ protected by the capsule of a bus or taxi … shepherded by an all-knowing guide & … nestled securely each night in a cruise ship’s cabin or a tour company’s efficiency hotel … constantly wiping away the dirty culture’s imagined debris from their clothes.
Today’s free independent traveler is a “Renaissance Man’: a 14th-century notion that men (there were some women) should pursue all knowledge & experiences, including the uplifting & uncomfortable, and develop all skills within their capacity.
Always seeking 'what's around the next corner."
A FIT traveler's goals are often 3-fold:
1) deeply research & explore Tier 1 sites: most iconic tourist sites,
2) ferret out & deeply explore Tier 2 sites: uniquely interesting but seldom visited.
3) reasonably immerse themselves in a culture's authentic, often gritty, back-street underbelly.
Travel Buds: ... Tier 1 & 2 sites
Travel guidebooks, the internet, and your brain are packed with Tier 1 sites. Throughout your lifetime of education, public media, reading, videos, & even the news .... you have amassed an inventory of foreign sitmes & experiences that intrigued you. 
I now call those travel tidbits ‘Travel Buds’.
Like tiny rose buds, these near-infinite numbered ‘Travel Buds’ are potential travel ideas lying asleep in your mind ‘under the snow’ waiting for you to thaw them out & turn them into Spring’s travel targets.
Anecdote: some of my Travel Buds:
Audrey Hepburn’s “Two for the Road’: a romantic European travel fantasy movie. Premise: Audrey is vacationing in Europe with a clutch of girlfriends and falls in love with young, solo, independent traveler Albert Finney (think old guy in Bourne movies). Sometime later, I traveled to Europe on a free Dating Game TV show contest trip and fantasized my own "Two for the Road", but alas, "Nada; no romance."
Brad Pitt’s “Seven Years in Tibet”; triggered 3 months in China: I was awed by Heinrich Harrer (Pitt), an Austrian mountaineer's treacherous trekking adventure from India POW camp to Tibet, & the profoundly unique relationship between he & the young Dalai Lama.
I could only fantasize about such a life experience as Harrer's fully described in his eponymous autobiographical book for myself. In some tangential way it motivated my 3 month China trip.
Research your Travel Buds to confirm & increase your curiosity & anticipation. Then, begin creating your foreign travel itinerary. The more you research & learn about your trip, the more excited you will become to travel and explore more deeply.
This Travel Bud ‘resurrection’ can be an exciting discovery adventure itself.
1) Famous Tier 1 tourist sites: hopefully with a novel twist.
Ocassionally by design or luck, a major Tier 1 site provides a very novel experience far outside the average touyrist's experiences. An ondepedent traveler's quick eye or a wise habit creates those situations.
Anecdote 1: Athen's Parthenon: In college art class, I learned that the Athenian Parthenon has intentional optical illusions. Its 'stylobate' (platform for columns to rest) and surrounding steps are bowed upward by varying amounts on different sides while the columns are bowed outward to create the illusion of horizontal and vertical perfection Fascinating stuff that, in part drove me to Greece.
Anecdote 2: China’s Great Wall: hiking quasi-off limits & abandoned sections. China's Great Wall is a vast, discontinuous system of sections & spurs crossing different terrains built in different eras. Several are popular, well-restored tourist sections, occasionally a 'no access' section, and rarely a totally ignored unrestored section.
Anecdote 1a: hiking quasi-off limits sections. China's Great Wall is a vast, discontinuous system of sections & spurs crossing different terrains built in different eras. Several are popular, well-restored tourist sections, occasionaly a 'no access' section, and rarely a totally ignored unrestored section.
Ocassionally, I dropped down a few feet from a tower window to hike those 'no access' spurs. I wasn't the 1st, but I saw no others. I was extremely cautious where the narrow bushy trail had broken away downhill. I enjoyed the cautious thrill of going carefully where most did not.
Anecdote 1b: abandoned sections: Returning from Jiumenkou Great Wall section by tuk-tuk, across the fields I spotted an unrestored Great Wall section immediately north of the Disney-fied Jioshan Great Wall section at Qinhuangdao city. I tapped my driver on the shoulder, pointed to the unfinished section, paid him his full fare & with tip, sending him on his way, and started walking across the fields and up on top of the unnamed unrestored section.
The top was mostly a simple dirt path on the top of the wall, used now only by locals. It was a mix of unrestored towers & stone-faced walls, much of wall’s original stone having been cannibalized for local construction.
Somehow, I felt a warm affinity to the original wall, its early soldiers, and construction workers perhaps because I could see the Wall’s innards as well as some finished, but deteriorated portions. These insights are the true traveler’s delight. (dig deeper)
Ancdote 2: Teotihuacan, Mexico’s huge pre-Aztec ruins: before all tourists ... to sit alone on Temple of the Moon.
Arriving late afternoon in the small town of San Juan Teotihuacán, next morning, I was at Teotihuacán’s gate an hour before Entry time because I had learned that when early & 1st, I can create opportunities.
I chatted with entry ticket folks a bit when they suddenly asked if I wanted to enter early. I was all smiles to enter almost an hour before all but maintenance crew. I roamed around this massive site by myself as though I were Elvis.
First, wandering through the vast complex down to Quetzalcoatl Temple & Citadel (Temple of the Feathered Serpent), then walking casually back up Avenue of the Dead’s 2.5 miles…. soaking in the magnitude & grandeur of this historically mysterious complex …. to the Temple of the Moon.
I climbed the Temple of the Moon as high as allowed, sat down, and pulled out a book to read, NOT because my book thrilled me, but rather because I was thrilled that I was the only tourist …. with the luxury to indulge my reading amid that colossal historical site of generations of human life.
Truly one of my most memorable travel moments.
2) Unique, but seldom visited Tier 2 sites; Tier 2 sites are often worthwhile, but either too small to accommodate large tour groups, too far off the beaten track for most, too esoteric or too inaccessible for large tour vehicles. Yet, they may be the most unique & exciting.
Anecdote 1: Argentina's Cuevos de las Manos prehistoric handprint site: Traveling down Andes Mtns east by bus about 163 km (101 mi) south of Perito Moreno on Ruta 40's long dirt road & 8 mi east (may be paved now) is Cueva de las Manos (Cave of Hands) named for hundreds of ancient man's stencil painted hands on the rock walls. You gotta want to be here.
Anecdote 2: Romania's Bucovina painted monastery & Spanta cemetery of uniquely painted wooden tombstones.
Anecdote 4: somewhat remote Lijiashan Village: A couple of overnights in a village carved literally out of the mountain's rock AND well-off-the-beaten track (2 bus rides, a mile road hike & a trek up a steep mountain road. 😀) I poked around this unique village with beautifully wood-carved fronts to their stone cave homes. I slept on a khan bed & ate her meals cooked over her wood-burning stove.
This 1st video peeks inside a quickly ABANDONED home with everything simply left in place (kids left for the cities, elderly died off) shows the brick 'khan' bed more often sculpted out of the bed rock. 2nd video shows how I/we used it.
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3) Gritty back-street underbelly: A FIT traveler's self-guided walking tour walking either aimlessly or between sites alert for any scintilla of cultural authenticity or uniqueness. While searching, they are basking in the smells, sounds & visuals of a culture ever alert for something interesting that pulls them off their route and down another path.
I am always probing a culture's underbelly, its 'hidden' traveler's wealth: a dark Cairo street opening to a streetside livestock market, the pristine narrow old neighborhoods of Noto, Sicily contrasted with the filthy swilled streets of India; a casual buying trip thru Vietnam's large open market tourists groups quickly skirt; a pre-dawn Camino de Santiago trek thru a tiny stone house village into rolling fields of vineyards.
I am always drawn far from the tourist areas into Bangkok, Saigon & Tokyo's city blocks of strangely quiet labyrinths of intimate narrow streets & alleys and their curiously peaceful neighborhoods. Even in heavily touristed Florence, Italy a walkabout literally drips of its past culture with Roman building remnants jutting like 'art' out of new building's corners to preserve them.
A FIT traveler sees Cairo’s 1900s beauty under its grime, feels & enjoys New Zealand’s jungle mud oozing into their Croc shoes, deeply inhales an Italian’s hearty luncheon aroma wafting from a kitchen window & firmly shakes the offered calloused hand of an Ecuadorian laborer.
FIT travelers achieve their goals by capitalizing on their prized freedom's autonomy to control as much as possible .... all elements of their travel, including the flexibility to alter their plans whenever & however they wish, … even while traveling. FIT travelers seldom rely on pre-packaged tours, travel agencies, or group arrangements. Truly independent, yet occasionally use day tour for convenience!
Their pre-trip research & planning informs what their senses explore
undistracted by a guide's constant commentary.
Anecdote 1: Agra’s neighborhood (Taj Mahal): In Agra, there is a lovely tree-lined Boulevard between Taj Mahal and Agra Fort, principally to make tourists feel comfortable by avoiding India's usual filthy environs. It was my main route back to my hostel if I chose to take it, but I chose a different route, seeking the cultural reality of Agra's 'hidden' neighborhoods.
In these back streets, children play soccer on vacant lots as raw sewage trickles endlessly down the middle of their streets. Where I, in elderly desperation, felt comfortably un-embarrassed, peeing against a vacant lot's well-stained wall.
My 'India Reflections': Bundi, India's gorgeously dressed low-caste Dalit sewage women: (excerpt from my "Allegra Letters") "Yesterday, exiting my authentic, but primitive home-converted hostel into India's hazy morning sun and dragging my rolling bag down a street to the bus, 2 women in their traditionally brilliantly gorgeous finery had apparently been working for several hours already digging the sewage & filth out of the 8" wide open gutters along both sides of the street. Their amassed piles of sewage-soaked ‘filth’ was 1 1/2’ high; the smell — foul." (Click above link to full India Reflection's writing.)
Shame on a 'caste' society that can send rockets to space.
Anecdote 2:Hong Kong’s Chungking Mansions’ ‘hostel’: my lowest quality hostel: After 2+
months traveling inexpensive mainland China’s hostels etc, this (me) cheapskate was appalled at Hong Kong prices and naively scraped the bottom of the barrel and reserved a room in a "hostel" inside Chunking Mansions.Hey, it sounded good.😌. In fact, ‘hostel’ was simply their 'clickbait' for attracting the destitute & trusting (Ha!). Dig Deeper
2nd level link content:
Chungking Mansion 'hostel' LOL
Chungking Mansion is a huge building divided vertically into 4 Lego-like stacks each with its own bank of elevators. The main floor is a chaotic cacophony of every nationality in that part of the world, each ricocheting off each other in frantic bargaining for the infinite variety of goods offered in its endless shops.
Once again I realized I was the only white person in a huge gaggle of cultures, races, languages & dialects, and clothing, hair & beard styles. At 1st the coward in me was frightened, but each time I passed in & out I realized no one consciously noticed me and I became less anxious, … even enjoying being part of this exotic throng.
My single room had 2 small beds lined along left side wall, a shower, toilet & sink. I laid my Cocoon sleeping bag liner, I always carried just for these rare moments to protect me from dicey-looking sheets & blankets & their critters.
A small single window looked out across a shaft PIK K10 supposedly giving light & air to everything in the building, a lá 19th-century NYC tenement houses. I actually got used to the jangling pots & pans & kinda enjoyed the pungent garlic smell wafting from the restaurant directly across the air shaft.
When I turned on my early morning light, the cockroaches scurried for cover, but that didn't bother me too much. Shower was a nice touch to start & end a day roaming Hong Kong environs. (close)
Simply, a FIT traveler exercises complete freedom & takes full responsibility for planning, design & execution of their foreign travel experiences including their choice of sites & activities and all the required logistics (transportation, itinerary, lodging, food, etc..
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B. CHARACTERISTICS of a (FIT) free independent traveler?
"Accepts full responsibility & risk as the price for
freedom's complete control & instant flexibility's rewards.
1. Curiosity-driven, alert for unique, unexpected, remote, authentic, dramatic & seamy
2. Distasteful, expected & spectacular: cultural experiences
3. Full responsibility for all risks & gains: safety, health, itinerary, & Complications
4. Freedom without compromise, so she usually travels alone,
5. Flexibility to change direction or plans on a whim,
6. Solitude to focus, reflect, and contemplate everything: yet open to others
7. ‘Life’s a test of personal character.
8. Travels ‘poor, ’ regardless of net worth, to better connect with the host culture’s roots.
9. ‘being lost’, expected, sometimes unnerving, but stimulating
10. Research & planning preparation:
11. Highly practical equipment: self-modified. essential boots/socks, rainproof jacket,
12. No recognition sought for travels
1. Curiosity-driven:
An ever-alert quest for unique, unexpected, authentic, dramatic or the seamy. IMO, 'curiosity' & its partner 'fear' have driven 
human evolution. It is our most powerful attribute. It protects us as we perch frightened in the tree above the hunting lion, yet teaches us survival strategies that bring us safely to the ground.
Curiosity is the inherent, unquenchable thirst to know everything that might protect us or enhance our lives & pleasure. Curiosity drives us 'around the next corner' in search of the next excitement.
[Return to FIT Characteristics]
2. Distasteful, as well as expected & spectacular:
FIT travelers willingly proactively confront the entire culture, the glorious & the distasteful, without undue qualm.
Anecdote 1: India’s grimy poverty contrasted with its magnificently painted havelis: e.g. Kothari’s Patwon Ki Haveli (early Silk Road wealthy merchant homes)
Anecdote 2: Latvia's Riga Ghetto & Holocaust Museum: Europe's German Nazi heritage: These grotesque images are burned into my brain as evidence of the potential for monumental cruelty of man to man. I try to empathize with the humiliation, and fear of these mothers separated only hours before from their husbands & sons & forced to carry their own innocent children into a Nazi's mass grave.
[Return to FIT Characteristics]
3. Full responsibility for my travel's risks & gains:
My safety, health, itinerary & complications. IMO, all human activity is, consciously or unconsciously, risk/reward-driven. 'Fear' is the referee of risk/reward contest.
Daily fear makes us .... look left at a crosswalk, grab a pot holder, & brush our teeth. Fortunately, our positive experiences move us confidently onward. Still, the greater our ignorance, the greater our fear. Natural.
'Dune' Quote: “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
―Frank Herbert,
Fear should NOT be ignored. It is both your bodyguard & the key to unlocking your dreams & achievements. Some ignore risk & take specious actions, then presume blind confidence in their ‘lucky’ survival, while many of us simply hide beneath our fear in character-destroying cowardice.
TR Quote:“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs,
even though checkered by failure,
than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much
because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”
― Theodore Roosevelt
Quote: “Do feared 1st” (me)
I kept this quote in printed form before me for several years to overide my nataural procrastination.
Anecdotes: Responsibility & Risk
1) Mexico, Guatemala & Belize: A moment's instant decision to extend a 1 month Mexican solo road trip to 2 months more unplanned thru Guatemala & Belize.
2) Myanmar's Yangon: ominous military dictatorship's ratty old capitol, off set by allure of legendary Bagan temples, Mandalay, & Inle Lake
3) Morocco's Tangiers: Ahead of schedule in Madrid, so I side-tracked to Africa's Tangiers for 3 days to ts intriguing, inherently baleful, dusky, tight & intricate dead-end walkways.
4) France’s iconic Mont-Saint-Michel: impromptu 4 dorm-mates in a hired cab. 
Anecdotes: Risk
1) Laos: Once I realized that at 70+ I could safely operate a scooter and then a motorcycle, I made several solo independent overnight road trips into the countryside. Exhilerating wind in my hair & freedom.
2) Morocco: In spite of my dark fear of Muslim countries; more so now.I found Tangier hauntingly exotic with it tight twisting streets and Arab Muslim flavor.
2) China’s Great Wall: hiking non-tourist & abandoned sections,
3) Laos’s Phonsavan: hiking & scooter travel in Plain of Jars’ & surrounding minefields.
4) Canada’s NW Territories: solo wilderness
backpacking 41 mi Chilkoot Trail trek & 350 mi 
Yukon River paddle.
[Return to FIT Characteristics]
4. Freedom without compromise: so usually travels alone because by human convention two people or more people doing anything must compromise: this direction or that direction, this restaurant or that café, that site or another. FIT travelers avoid compromise because it dilutes their options.
[Return to FIT Characteristics]
5. Flexibility allied with Freedom maximizes a FIT traveler's fulfillment of their goals because they can tailor & maximize the value of their travel time, including spending adjustable time-on-site depending on level of interest. The degree of cultural or site immersion is always flexible, even on the fly. It’s always your call.
Anecdote: Tangiers, Morocco unplanned side trip: after 36 days,
trekking northern Spain's Camino de Santiago’s 600 mi, I segued into 1½ months of FIT travel thru Portugal & southern Spain.
In Madrid, I realized I was too far ahead of my itinerary, so I booked a train to southwest Spain, & took a boat to Tangiers, Morocco for 3 days, then, returned to Madrid & continued my journey.
Return to FIT Characteristics]
6. Solitude fosters focus, reflection & contemplation of everything: yet, always open to spontaneous interaction with others.
Anecdote:
1) Teotihuacan’ Moon Temple: solitude’s reverie, contemplation, alone in a vast complex.
2) Chilkoot Trail & Yukon River: 3 weeks of solo hiking & kayaking & reflection encountering only briefly a 
hiker or my long distant wave to an oriental solo boater with a large book mounted in front of him to read as he floated down river.
3) Hanoi, Saigon, Beijing walkabouts: ‘solo alien’ amongst thousands.
4) Beijing, China: While on my self-guided walking tour through un-touristed Beijing neighborhoods, I arrived at a popular tourist gathering spot at the south tip of Houhai Lake. Two tourists gazed at the lake while 2 Chinese women stood behind them, giving their gentle backs & shoulders inexpensive massages.
I couldn't resist. I walked silently up behind one of the oriental masseuse's and, without her permission or knowledge started massaging her neck and shoulders. She turned around, mildly startled, and immediately started laughing at me. We all had a great laugh.
5. Camino de Santiago's early dark morning: most mornings, I have woken my dorm bed well before others in the break of dawn. I dressed quietly in the dark, my clothes laid out carefully the night before, so I knew they were without lights. I tossed my backpack over my shoulders and struck out into the night. Often, Orion and the Big Dipper were behind me in the east I walked north.
One morning, a group of young Austrian men raced up from behind, and I quietly stepped off to the side, unnoticed in the narrow beams of their headlights. I praised my solitude those mornings.
Often, I would go for miles, occasionally passing or being passed with just a friendly "hello." I prized my solitude and its meditative reflections. Yet, I always enjoyed evening conversations in the hostel's kitchen & common area.
[Return to FIT Characteristics]
7. ‘Life’s test of character. Our ‘character’, especially work ethic, moral qualities, ethical standards, & behavioral principles, hover in our psyche constantly. I often wonder if the 
confidence I try to exude is a dishonest facade disguising my inner fears, my ‘moral failures’ sometimes ignored even by myself, yet ... my skills have been hard won,
Anecdote: A Vietnam Navy carrier fighter pilot -- my friend- exuded raw, bold confidence, competency, & skill. My idol. Yet, years later, he applauded my “ability to survive”. I was flabbergasted & flattered.
I constantly struggled & fought my fears of character inadequacy with bolder & bolder challenges, hoping I might someday satisfy myself. Independent solo travel was my ULTIMATE challenge.
[Return to FIT Characteristics]
Anecdote:
1) Chilkoot Trail/Yukon River’s 2 panic attacks:
a) Chillkoot Trail, Alaska:
A few years before, I had solo backpacked the multi-over night Chillkoot Trail in Alaska to the Northwest Territories Yukon River’s headwater lake, Lake Bennett, to start a 600-mile solo kayak paddle down to Dawson.
After paddling 45 minutes, I was so gripped with fear (1st panic attack) that I paddled directly to shore & sat staring a the water, embarrassed/ashamed of myself.
I spent a ½ hour talking myself through it: “You planned & prepared for this & frankly, you don't have much choice. You're out in the wild, so get a grip & get back out there.”
b) Yukon & Big Salmon River Junction:
Several days later, the Big Salmon River flushed its massive flow directly into my kayak in the middle of the Yukon River just below Carmack, carrying large half-submerged logs as big as my kayak.
[LINK] [YTclip when AK published]
This 2nd panic attack struck with no close beach to paddle to. Irrationally, I briefly contemplated jumping out of the kayak & running to shore. Absurd, of course.
Again, I talked myself through it: “ You have the best equipment, you have trained for this —there is no REAL danger unless you let yourself succumb to the panic." Minutes later I was back in control, shaken, but never again so frightened until the Zocalo & never again
2) 1st Mexico City trip: riddled with paranoia: within the first hour of my solo walkabout, I was riddled with intense paranoia. Fortunately, I just kept walking. It soon disappeared and never returned.
Anecdote 1: Mexico City‘s: The Zocalo’s panic attack .
The Zocalo, Mexico City’s main square, is now what once was the Aztecs’ main ceremonial center of ancient Tenochtitlan). Immediately after I had unpacked in my hotel a block off Mexico City's historical Zocalo district, I began my usual walkabout [YT LINK] this huge historical square.
Almost immediately, I was near-paralyzed with the raw, gut-wrenching fear of paranoia. I almost ran back & jumped in bed, seriously, but ….. instead, I just kept walking.
It was not my first visit to a foreign developing world city, BUT within a ½ hour, the fear had melted away almost unnoticed & … never returned again — anywhere. Go figure.
Anecdote 1: China: “Russia’s ‘evil’ brother: In 2011, shortly before I left for China, I invited 3 Chinese exchange students working at Albertson’s to visit nearby Yellowstone National Park for the day with a friend & I. While roaming the park one girl asked me what my opinion of China was. I told her, as honestly as I could.....
"US President Reagan had once described Russia as the "Evil Empire.”"
and I told her, at that moment of her question,
I thought of China as the ‘Evil Empire's brother.’
But now, I had put my cowardice aside and had committed to 3 months of travel in China. My China research became my usual obsession fueled by:
1st, entirely reading Lonely Planet's China guidebook, literally 'slicing' out with a razor knife what either did not interest me or was not feasible for this trip — think Tibet.
2nd, was Professor Ken Hammond’s,. “From Yao to Mao: 5000 years of Chinese History" video series NOW available on YouTube. I outlined every tape, finally condensing my outline to a final tight synopsis. Yes, I am probably too fastidious (anal), but ……. China is vast in size & history, a collection of geographical and historical cultures that, if you travel it widely enough, you will encounter.
Once I was traveling China, I realized that my fears, as they often are, were UNfounded. I was absolutely wrong. I recall not the slightest threat of oppression either from the culture or as a tourist traveling through it. My China experience was devoid of even the slightest hint of communist oppression that might affect me. I wasn't looking for trouble, and I saw none.
In sum, China was an exciting travel experience — intellectually fulfilling & expanding, exposing the novel, crushing my stereotypes, testing my fears, and physically challenging. Its people are as welcoming and humor-loving as Americans may be.
[Return to FIT Characteristics]
8. Travels ‘poor’, regardless of net worth:
Just another old dufus old tourist ➩➩➩➩
Easier to connect locals when an obvious, unpretentious traveler, rather than a self-conscious & distant tourist.
Certainly, your quality of travel is your choice: 1st class flight vs ‘tied to a wing’, expensive hotel vs hostel dorm bed, street food vs expensive restaurant, private personal guide vs. ‘self-guiding’, …. or a mix. I usually chose to stay in-character as 'the frugal traveler.'
[Return to FIT Characteristics]
9. ‘being lost’ is expected, sometimes unnerving, but always stimulating:
a) Slovakia: lost en route to a Disney-like castle
ANECDOTE: In Slovakia, Eastern Europe I was taking trains to a Disney-like castle town -- Bojnice Castle. As usual, I had researched the train schedules enough that I thought I could flexibly alter my routing. Wrong! I selected a different train, asked the station platform officer if this was the train I needed. Once on the train the Conductor confirmed my ticket was to where I thought it was going.
BUT, she returned 5 minutes later, asked to see my TIK again & advised that she had been wrong -- not reading it closely enough -- & I was going the wrong way on the wrong train. By now we had traveled past 2-3 stations.
I had to get off & try to navigate back, but their were no trains going that way for a while. So, I got a taxi to return me to the original station, the station TIK window lady told driver what she thought I was trying to do (did not speak much English) & off we went traveling much farther past where I knew my original station should be. The driver then dropped me at a bus stop & directed me to the opposite side of the street. I was angry thinking he had duped me & was just getting rid of me -- this was NOT a train station & certainly not the station I had left from.
I started walking toward a nearby University in hopes I could find someone who spoke English. I did. He gave me directions & I started walking to ‘nowhere’, until I stopped a car load of police, who finally put me in the car & drove me back to the same ‘bus stop.” I thanked them, (“You don’t question good intentioned police).
I then began a close examination of the blizzard of schedules pasted to the bus stop board. Eventually, I discovered my city, confirmed (???) with other folks at the bus stop, & several hours later I arrived by bus at my castle town. During the above my emotions ranged in great spikes from ‘confidence’ to “panic” to ‘resolute’ to “relief’ to ‘frustrated futility‘ to ‘hopeful confidence’ ultimately to ‘elation’ on arrival. While not normal, such serendipitous calamity is frequent enough to always be in my mind’s forward searching eye.
[Return to FIT Characteristics]
b) Argentina's lost ‘main’ luggage bag:
10. Research & planning preparation: The greater your pre-trip research & planning, the less you'll fear, the more likely you will travel safely, & efficiently and achieve your travel goals. Know what sites you want to visit & why! Know the simple logistics of getting there, sleeping & eating— vital.
That's a fact, IMO!!! Travel without research & planning is unnecessarily foolish & thinly fulfilling, if at all.
Please link to the following Main Heading for:
1) FIT Main Heading for Research & Planning-related Topics:
4. SIT Research
5. SIT travel trip dates
6. SIT planning
7. SIT Free time.
8. SIT Itinerary.
10. SIT Transportation,
11. SIT lodging,
13. SIT limited luggage space
2) Main Heading: Resources (Safety, Health, Docs, etc. [LINK. ]:
3) Main Heading: Journey > Asia > China Itinerary [LINK. ]:
[Return to FIT Characteristics]
11. Highly practical equipment, & self-modified. essential hiking boots/socks, rainproof jacket,
Please link to following Main Heading for:
1) FIT Main Heading for Equipment related Topics: [LINK. ].
2) Resource Main Heading: Safety, Docs, Equip. & ITIN [LINK. ]:
[Return to FIT Characteristics]
12. No recognition sought for travels
seeks no recognition or applause for travels.
Anecdote: my closest friends: would ask, after each trip, “How was your trip?”, to which I would answer. “Great!” … and that was it —- no further discussion.
I soon realized my travels were my experience, my memories, my passion, not theirs.
Postscript: Tourists:
1. Seek diversion from their lives’ normal predictability & pressures
Anecdote: Tourist chain: Often, I have seen a line of tourists strung out behind their briskly marching guide, most of them unable to hear their guide’s commentary, so simply chatted amongst themselves or plodded along resolutely.
Anecdote: Panama Canal’s train ride: a tourist kept trying to chat with me, preventing me from experiencing the train ride until I tactfully asked him to please stop. Why was he even there? Bragging rights?
2. Abdicates safety& responsibility to travel company & guide, presuming they guarantee.
3. accepts or is unaware of specious intellectual value of company’s sparse itinerary & commentary.
4. unaware of their superficial disconnect with the underlying culture they pass through.
5. Self-deluded by cruise ship’s make-believe catered luxury & expensive, lazy “sea days.”
6. relish their return home ‘bragging rights.’
[Return to FIT Characteristics]
III. What is purpose & goal of this website?
My sole purpose & goal for this independent solo traveler's website is to:
1) inspire your solo travel ambitions,
2) anticipate & answer your myriad independent traveler's questions
3) increase your solo independent travel info & skills,
4) help you successfully pursue the domestic & world solo independent travel I have for 30 years
5) safely maximize the confidence, pleasure, memories, ease & benefits of your life’s travels.
My advice is “experience-accurate” based on MY 35 years of travel insights & experiences stated as clearly and completely as I can to maximize your ease of understanding. The credibility of my advice is inherent (1) in my frequently embedded personal, authentic travel Anecdotes acquired over 30+ years and the Safe Practices those Anecdotes have taught me, AND, (2) my well over 1250 Youtube solo indpendent travel videos.
This website is the non-profit, labor-of-love, work-in-progress of this 85-year-old’ man’s ‘well-lived’ life; 35 years domestic & 20 years foreign solo independent travel.
No click-bait’, cluttering advertisements or phony enthusiasm.
To be clear --- I seek no income, no financial support, & no sponsor's endorsements (free hotels, flights, or excursions) in return for their advertising on my website; NO advertising!, …NO profit!
Jim Cramer, TV stock guru says,
“You only need to get wealthy once.”
I did.
NOTE: You do NOT need to ‘memorize it all’ like a silly college professor presumes. Simply scan thru it, focusing on what is important to you, BUT try to become familiar with my website’s structure so you can navigate it easily anytime, anywhere in the world when you need it most.
SO, I have been creating this website for a 2 years, and it is still in the creation stage, IOW,
“…the tip of the tail is wagging this dog.’ 😀.
If my independent solo travel does not intrigue you, you really don't need or want to read this website, EXCEPT perhaps for, my 2 fully developed Big Bus Tours & Cruising posts fully describing the PROs & CONs of their ‘Travel Factors.’
Big Bus Touring: [plk: Big Bus touring]. Cruising: [plk: Cruisng]
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