If there’s one thing people are full of, it’s advice. Where to go, where to stay, what not to do, what tours to do, what companies to avoid, basically everything about everywhere. The trick is sifting through and deciding what advice to trust and what advice to let fly out that proverbial window.
We ran into a lot of advice traveling around the world. As you can imagine, we were always intrigued to hear tips and advice, but as we found out hearing what wasn’t said or reading between the lines became the most important aspect of sifting through to find the travel gems. So before I write any more idioms, here’s our list of the good, bad and ugly travel advice we were given!
The ferry from Egypt was late so we arrived in Wadi Halfa sometime around midnight and began to search for a hotel. We were shocked at the expense of Wadi Halfa, but it was late and we finally chose a nice place based on the review of an Australian girl in the lobby. Three hours later we were still downstairs drinking tea and chatting with the Australian girl and the manager. She gave us the best travel tip we’d ever received, go to Petra late. Miss the crowds and stay for sunset. We were hesitant, but unwilling to get up early, we took her advice. We arrived around noon and the place was packed. By 3pm most of the tours had started to leave and by 5pm we were virtually alone. It was magnificent. Thankfully we had purchased a two day pass and arrived late the next afternoon as well and spent hours wandering around the site in the late afternoon sun with virtually no other tourists in sight. Magical and perfect.
The Bad – China during National Holiday
Arriving to a country during their peak festival time can be a great time to experience the culture. Unfortunately the entire population of China (read: 1 billion people) travels at two points of the year: Chinese New Year and National Holiday. Part of our visit coincided with National Holiday.
A expat told us that it wouldn’t be a problem to travel during this time and that it would only last 10 days. Unfortunately that wasn’t our experience. Sites were dangerously overcrowded and we ended up passing up the opportunity to see the Leshan Buddha after hearing one tale of 4 hours waiting just to buy a ticket! Since the population is so large, some companies have started staggering the vacation days, essentially extending the holiday travel period for more than two weeks. We ended up being virtually trapped in Chengdu, no trains or buses were available to go anywhere East or North (we had come from the West) for more than a week. It wasn’t such a terrible place to be trapped, but it definitely impacted our entire travel schedule and our month traveling in China was over quicker than we thought.
The Ugly – Overnight Bus in Malawi
After getting to know a hotel manager very well in Malawi, we felt we could trust his recommendation on the overnight buses. He assured us that he took the bus regularly to visit family in the north and that it was very comfortable at night. He helped us buy our tickets, reviewed the ticket and assured us we’d have a pleasant and comfortable journey.
It turned out to be one of the worst bus experiences of our whole trip.
The bus was three seats by two seats, if you’ve ever been on a bus like this you know the seats are about 25% smaller to accommodate another seat. We of course, were in the three seater most of the way until we negotiated a trade with two women and a baby. A heinously overcrowded bus, crying babies, frequent stops, long waits, several police inspections, and having luggage piled on my lap, it was a nightmare. Everything I had ever dreaded about an overnight bus had come together on this single journey. It was an experience my mind couldn’t even process at the time because I was just focused on getting through the night. If only it had been the comfortable bus in this picture from Peru… Needless to say, it got worse when we disembarked at a muddy bus station well before dawn only to be accosted by what felt like hundreds of locusts (taxi drivers).
What has been your experience with tips and advice? Any gems or nightmares you care to share with us?
This column of ishouldlogoff.com aims to answer those questions that we always get asked. What was your favorite this, or your worst that. Every week we aim to highlight a new topic and will do so until we run out of ideas. If you have an idea for a Good-Bad-Ugly post, feel free to tell us in the comment section below or send us an email. To read all of them, click here.
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