The most egregious mistakes a rookie Adventure Traveler can make while traversing the globe.
As a prospective adventurer with or without travel experience, you need to be careful. Travel heightens risk because safety nets like family and familiarity don't exist. You're out in the world by yourself, an explorer insatiably chasing the experiences denied you at home, bound to make mistakes. But if you read this blog, you won't make as many mistakes. SO there's that.
Here is a list of the 6 most common errors made by amateur adventure travelers.
1 Packing too much stuff
This is the most obvious, and I talk about this ALL the time. What are you doing, hauling your living room around with you? Why would you take a quarter of your belongings with you, especially when your initial desire was to change your surroundings? Does your back feel good from all that unnecessary weight?
Because uninhibited joking isn't my intention, the questions stop here. But seriously, excessive possessions will bog you down. They make you a target for thievery, require more management, and are a prime example of diminishing returns. A good adventure traveler is minimalist because they can move more quickly, with less worry, and with more focus on experiences rather than things.
2 Avoiding public transit
Because security concerns are both real and grounded while traveling, people tend to avoid the methods of transportation used by locals-- especially locals of low socio-economic standing.
But to know a country truly, one must escape the bubble catering to (relatively) rich tourists. That means taking an occasional bus through the inner city from a bus station just to see how the majority of a populous subsists. My favorite public transportation network is in Guatemala, "Chicken Buses," and they're old USA school buses with crazy paint jobs and modified engines. Riding on one is a fast paced thrill, but you ought to avoid them during peak hours if you're claustrophobic!
In reality, public transit is often not as comfortable as a private tourist shuttle, but is fundamentally more adventurous and money $aving. Additionally, if you plan to go on serious adventures, public transit is frequently the only means of arriving at more obscure locations (other than hitchhiking), so you'll be required to ride the same buses as locals.
Check out this Instagram reel I made about Guatemala's chicken buses!
3 Getting sick
Like the pandemic has shown humanity, sickness can virulently surprise us over the course of simply living. Sometimes illness is unavoidable. But other times illness is EXTREMEY avoidable.
One of the biggest mistakes made by an adventure traveler is believing they're invincible and can go drinking 5 days a week without consequence, or disrespecting the heat/cold/elements by underpreparing, or under-provisioning because you're overconfident. Often, these behaviors lead not to explicit sickness like a flu but to what I like to call the "oh it's nothing" cough. The point is no one wants to operate at 51% capacity while adventuring. You need to be as close as possible to 100% because adventures can be demanding, in a good way, and a sickly individual will suffer far more on adventures.
There are some really simple steps a person can take to ensure they're retaining their strength. A few examples are drinking plenty of water, taking vitamins, and not overindulging. And this seems like the perfect lead up to...
4 Not Resting
You need rest, rest is natural and just because you can ride travel adrenaline for days or weeks at a time, doesn't mean you should. Some travelers will avoid rest for personal reasons like fleeing homesickness or something else, and they turn to parties or other toxic practices to prolong the process of dealing with internal strife. But travel's physical distance from familiarity is an opportunity to address personal strife, not to retreat further into ignorance.
Specific to Adventure Traveling, a sense of urgency is also common. The natural environment evokes in humanity a sense of survival and impending danger, compelling activity and alertness, making the inclination to rest weaker. But with a bit of mindfulness practice, any traveler can achieve a deep and revitalizing rest, and doing so will ensure you can can travel longer, stronger, and bolder than most.
5 Not Learning
Everyday is an opportunity to learn, especially while traveling. There are museums and unique architecture everywhere, as well as new foods and dances. Long story short, you're in a hyper-novel environment and are practically forced to learn. But that's NOT what I'm talking about here.
Fundamentally, travel opens a person to the multiplicity of the world, of how many variations for human life exist in the world. There are also loads of people who want to talk to you out of a natural curiosity for foreigners, and the most egregious offense (maybe on this entire list) is to turn away from these friendly people.
As an adventure traveler, you are especially apt to venture into territories where learning about local customs, mannerisms, and traditions directly from normal people will ingratiate you. Once you're on good terms with locals, worlds of possibilities open. Just being open to learning about another person's life can lead you on unforeseen adventures, like the time I visited a finca in the the Las Minas reserve in Guatemala.
6 Spending all their money
The lights, the pretty people, the cheap food and beer... everything requires your money, but spending freely feels WAY easier in a foreign currency, at cheap prices. Plus, traveling has already put you in an excited state where you're more apt to spend money freely. Hence, a trip to the bar that's usually 2 drinks and done (at home) turns into 8 drinks (while traveling), or a souvenir shopping spree feels more justified everywhere you go, or maybe you're just dying for some creature comforts and willing to pay exorbitant prices for a bed or meal.
Staying disciplined with your checkbook is essential to travel uninterupted, and vital to keeping your morale high. I've been broke, in the middle of nowhere, and dependent on others for food because of funding problems while wandering. For me, this was a bit exciting. But for others, I can't recommend it.
If you want to learn more about Mental Sweat Official and Justin Markowitz, visit my website or reach out to me via email at mentalsweatofficial@gmail.com or via DM on social media.
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