How to Not Get Tourist Trapped

Everyone has a list of places they want to visit. From major cities to national parks, to famous landmarks, and everything in between. So, when you are taking a trip, how do you balance the tourist locations from the more local spots? This balance can be the difference between a memorable trip and a tourist’s nightmare. Long lines and crowded pictures are never fun. 

Now, I am not saying that you should avoid the tourist attractions all together. If you are in France, the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre Museum, and the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, are must-sees.

Would you really go to Arizona without seeing the Grand Canyon? Would London be worth your time and money if you don’t see Big Ben or Buckingham Palace? The key to a perfect trip is realizing that you should not base your entire trip around these tourist destinations. Yes, they are important historical sites to see, but there is so much more to a city.

Here is how have the perfect trip:

1). Schedule and plan when you are going to visit the tourist destinations 

By scheduling tours or planned times for when you are going to visit an attraction, you can be more efficient with how you spend your time. You can save time by doing your research. Before traveling, there are a couple things you can do to make your trip a little easier. 

·       You should write down the location of all your tourist attractions and how to get there. Similarly, become familiar with your choice of destination via an online map. You may choose to rent a car, walk, or use public transportation. All of these require previous planning. To go one step further, look up when the busy/rush hours will be so you know when to avoid driving/using public transportation.

·       You should also research where you will go when you arrive at the attraction. Different attractions can be very confusing, but you can save time and energy if you already know where to go. 

These simple steps can save a lot of time during your trip for more fun things.

2). Be flexible  

When you are visiting a foreign country or a place you have never visited before, it is easy to plan and schedule different attractions for every second of the day. However, this is one of the worst things you can do as a traveler. Picture this, you are walking through a foreign city trying to find the museum that you booked a tour of. As you are walking, you see all of the interesting shops and restaurants on the side of the road. However, you have tours lined up all day and you know there will be zero free time to walk around and just enjoy the city. At this point, you are highly regretting the decision you made to over plan. Now, if you book one tour per day or leave one day completely open, you could take a picture of all the places you saw and visit them at another time. Some fun things to do in your free time are…

·       Visit a local cafe: Try to avoid Starbucks since that is a very common place in the U.S.

·       Free attractions – Believe it or not, cities love to host free or inexpensive events. There also may be some free museums and art galleries available to visit. 

·       If you are a young adult and traveling alone or in a small group, a bike tour is a fantastic way to see the city in a short amount of time.

3). Try to stay off the main roads

This may seem like a crazy suggestion, but by straying from the main roads, you never know what you can find. You may find the locals favorite restaurant or a small green space perfect for reading. Now, this suggestion goes hand in hand with safety. Make sure you do your research about city safety before you travel. Some common safety tips are…

·       Don’t go down a dark alley at night

·       When traveling alone, make sure there are other people around you

·       Be aware of the popular scams in the city you are traveling in

4). Use public transportation

Now this may seem like a no brainer. Public transportation is one of the easiest ways to travel around a big city. However public transportation provides a good insight into a city’s culture. 

Pro Tip: When traveling through Europe, take the train between destinations as this is something many Europeans do. You may even meet some people. For example, my family and I took a summer vacation to Paris. We then took a train to Amsterdam. On the train, we met a Dutch family and we talked the entire train ride about sports, food, school, and more. I learned more about The Netherlands during that conversation than I will in my entire life. It truly was a memorable experience.