Building Confidence in Your Travel Journey as a New Traveler

[0:00] Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of Put the Guidebook Down, a Kultura Travel podcast with me, Kiara, the creator as your host. One of my best friends, Christine, joining me here today. Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm so excited for today's episode, because in last week's we talked about the idea of reclaiming spontaneity when it comes to travel. As someone who's a little bit newer in their travel journey, you've done a couple — we'll get into that. You've said off camera that you've done different types of travel so far: going abroad somewhere, going with a travel group, planning completely all on your own, and then going to a resort where you just stay at the resort and do whatever the resort has planned for you. In terms of geography, where have you been in the world? Just to give our listeners some context.

I've been to Europe. I went to Ireland. I've been to Paris. I've been to Mexico. Went to Bermuda. A little out, but not a ton. You've been a little bit around the states as well, so been out to the west coast, out to Vegas, Grand Canyon, down south to Florida, Texas — travel the states and Canada, of course.

This is good, because it gives a little bit of, like, you have traveled internationally and nationally, you're still relatively newer in your travel journey. I think it's going to be a really good episode to really get into finding confidence in going about your travel journey and also talking about how you should go about selecting the type of travel journey you go on. I'm very impressed by some of your previous guests, and yourself, with how confident you are with traveling to a totally different country and even living there, embracing the culture, learning the language, just really taking in everything there is there and just going for it whole hog. I'm on the other side of the spectrum right now, but I want to take a little bit of that with me, go into the world more open-minded like you are, I hope.

I can convince you to go on my trip to Mongolia. I know you said maybe not the whole backpacking into the wild.

We're taking baby steps, girl. Baby steps. That's why we're here to talk about this today. What I would like to know to get started is, when you're talking about traveling somewhere maybe internationally, or something with a little bit of a caution label, what is intimidating about traveling there or going somewhere unfamiliar?

First would be language barrier. I like being able to ask as many questions as I need to. As somebody who has anxiety with traveling, sometimes you want to know, is this the right — is this the flight going here, do I have everything to go, making sure you have all your ducks in a row. Everything's situated, organized, and correct — you've got everything where you're going, you're going in the right direction. When there's a language barrier, sometimes you don't always get that security and that confidence with being able to ask every single question you have on your mind.

You mentioned you've been to Mexico, you've been to France, so you have a little bit of language background in French and Spanish, correct?

Correct. Spanish more, I'd say. French, I definitely tried to learn the language a little bit so I could avoid that apprehension, that anxiety. Spanish I speak a little bit more — that definitely came in handy. Just very basic Spanish, enough where I feel comfortable and confident, like, we're getting dropped off at the airport, this is terminal three, the next one's terminal four, and that's the one you need. Or even talking to locals, or buying things, being able to make sure you get the right size T-shirt, the right color — just little things that avoid that awkwardness.

Then talking, because in those trips you had a little bit of the language before you go — you mentioned learning a little bit of French before you went to Paris. What did that look like, how did it help you feel more secure before your departure?

It definitely made me feel a lot better, because part of me was definitely a little nervous about getting there and just not being able to communicate with anybody. I was like, I'm not going to be able to check into my hotel, I'm going to get there and just be lost at all. Having just even a basic knowledge of the language definitely helps. Again, in Paris it's nice, a lot of the people there do speak a basic level of English. Also, traveling with somebody who knows the language more than you, also very helpful.

When you were preparing with your French, what was the tactic there — were you using Duolingo?

I have the free language, the free app can do it for me every time, thank you very much. No, my cousin, when we went to Paris, my cousin speaks a very decent amount of French, having her was great. My mom and I just did Duolingo, that was it. Spanish, I took that in high school and I've just kept it up. That's why.

Good for you. I feel like Duolingo is such the go-to right now for anyone. There's so many jokes online about how people do all their language prep before they go to their destination because of Duolingo — they get there and they're like, "I am a woman, I want an apple."

I think there was one joke — I have all this lingo when it comes to prisons, for some odd reason.

It's true, kind of like how random Duolingo's approach to language studying is. The core of it, even if it's not perfect, the locals know that you gave an effort, which I think is the most important thing. Because, as you mentioned, not only is it just to make sure you're getting the right place, that you're buying the right size T-shirt, you're also engaging, as you said, with the locals.

I think one of the biggest things I realized is, here in America, whenever I walk into an establishment I always go, hi, how are you? Hi, how are you doing? How's it going? Bye, thank you. I'm always like, bye, thank you, bye, thanks, bye, have a good night. You don't realize how much you say it until you're in another country, and you walk in and you're like, hola — you're like, okay. Adios, buena noche, before I leave. Because if I say this in America, why would I not say it in another country as well?

I like that. I think this is even more of a testament to why we need an episode on this podcast about language and how we go about it. Because, my joke — when I was in Indonesia, one of my favorite things was, with our language study program for Bahasa Indonesia, we would have these dialogues. We would practice the dialogues, like, for example, going to the cafe and how you would go about ordering your coffee, what happens after that, thanking them, and saying have a good day. My biggest fear was when they would go off dialogue, as I would say — went off script. I'd go up to the cafe and be like, hello, how are you, in Indonesian, they'd say good, I go to order coffee, and then she's speaking full Indonesian, and I go, wait a second, this is not how I rehearsed this interaction to go — I'm okay, hold on. Then I feel like I have to explain my glitch in the matrix, because I'm processing how to respond to their question while also going back to the dialogue — how can I redirect this to what I know?

I totally relate to you and your experience with the rehearsing, especially — if I'm going to say it this way in the States, why am I not making an effort to also do the same level of formality and politeness in another country, in their language? Just little phrases that aren't that hard to learn. I will also say, honestly, I also went on TikTok and found — because TikTok just knew, they knew I was on my way to Paris, so they got me — I got some videos of people saying, here's some good phrases to know when you're in Paris. I opened up the Notes app and wrote it down, I tried to memorize some good phrases. I'm all gone now. At the time I knew how to ask for a carafe of water, so I wouldn't have to ask for different things — that was a common phrase to say there that Duolingo hadn't touched on yet.

Because it wasn't yet in your Duolingo journey. So TikTok is interesting — we'll go do an episode about language learning, we'll have you back, everyone. Let's refocus it back onto the confidence style of our podcast today. Talking about then selecting the type of journey you want to go on for travel — group travel versus independently planned versus resort style. How do you go about selecting which one?

I think it depends on your confidence level and what you want to do there. For Ireland, for instance, me, my mom, my dad, we wanted to really travel and get to know every major stop in Ireland. For us, a tour group was the best way to do that — they planned every stop for you, all the restaurants, all the different pubs, all the different places, events, cultural things, all the hotel bookings. So we stayed at a different hotel every single night, because we traveled the entire country of Ireland to really make sure you hit everything you wanted to, which was great for us, because you just get the plane over, get on that bus, and they do the rest for you. They even bring you back to the airport, they make sure they got you there early, so you didn't miss that international flight — what was it, like four hours early?

We got through the first part of it and we were like, we got three hours to burn, let's go shopping in the duty free. We got past the duty free and we're like, is this it? I think a tour group is great if you're like, I really want to cover a large amount of ground, then planning it yourself is better if there's specific things you want to do that you don't want to miss. When we went to Paris, my cousin was like, we're going to Versailles, that's on her list, she wants to go to Versailles. Obviously I wanted to go to as many art museums as I could possibly hit up. My mom and my aunt were just happy we were planning the whole thing for them.

We had to learn how to use the subway there, which actually is very intuitive, very easy to use. Google Maps is your friend. All-inclusive resort is really if you're like, I want to go to this country because I love the water, the ocean's gorgeous, the climate down there is great. I just want to go somewhere and maybe still go out and do an excursion here or there, but you're really going to do what the resort has to offer, mostly.

In terms of those three types of options, where did you find the most room for spontaneity?

Oh, planning it yourself. Honestly, the tour group would be the least spontaneous, because they are bringing you everywhere, you're not doing any sort of on-your-own little excursions — they have the itinerary planned for you, which was great, we loved that, doing what they're doing. You're getting on the bus at the time they told you you're getting on the bus, waking up and getting on the bus in the morning at the time they told you to, because there's four things that were hit that day. It was a very scheduled experience. The all-inclusive resort is — yes, you're stuck pretty much in that one location, you probably don't have a vehicle to transport you wherever you want to go, but there's a lot of things you can book outside, like if there's a volcano nearby, or something that peaks your fancy in the area, there's probably an excursion you could book. For the most part you're sleeping in the same place, staying mostly on the resort, because you paid good money for the resort, so you want to use the resort. Then just booking everything yourself is the most fun, because you do whatever you want — it's your trip, you're booking it all.

I think that also goes into my next question for you — in terms of the most room for cultural connection, cultural travel, deeper travel, it's really going to come into that planning-it-yourself vacation or travel, because I feel with the resort, as you said, you're pretty much in this bubble made by the place you're staying at, where you have all the activities you could potentially theoretically need there. You have to make the extra effort to go out and do those other activities if you really wanted to. And I think the next place would be the guided tour, because you are doing the cultural travel within the guided tour, but it's maybe the same travel that all tourists get with that group. One of the things we talk about a lot here with cultural travel on this podcast is this idea of the cookie-cutter traveler — so regardless of where they go with this destination, with a guided tour group, they're still going to get the same experience as every other person who signs up on that tour. So do you think then — this is totally opinion — those guided tours really are cultural travel?

I feel like this is a hot take, I might have to slightly disagree with you. I think somebody planning their own trip, they're trying to research places to go, they're like, okay, this is a good place, we hit Google, that's what comes up, right — Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, all these different things that when you hit Google, that's what comes up, good to go to. But sometimes when you go on a guided tour group, they can bring you to the more hidden gems that maybe Google doesn't show you right away. You didn't even know this was a place you could go, you didn't even know this was a thing to see. You are with a local showing you around, which can be helpful. But this all depends on who's booking the travel — if it's somebody who does just go to a search engine and type in what to do in Paris, what to do in Ireland, they're going to get the most obvious things to do, so maybe a tour group would be more beneficial to you, because you're going to see things that don't pop up on Google as much. You're with someone, well, like Kiara, who wants to backpack through Mongolia for two weeks, you're going to see more than the tour group would probably show you, so we need that kind of medium between the two.

I feel like you're giving me ideas for Kultura Travel, and I love it when people have other ideas or opinions against mine, so I think it's good. For somebody who's like a baby traveler or just starting out, almost kind of like myself — like I went to Paris and it was lovely, but I'm sure there's more things I could have done there and tried there — maybe if I had somebody who was more embedded in the culture and knew it, and their whole job was bringing you to places in their own country or city.

It's true. Getting ready to close out our episode — first of all, what steps do you think people can take to help build confidence in their travel journey?

I think I'm trying to start out my confidence.

So you can share what you think, or how you're going about building your confidence in travel.

So for me, I think I'm just looking at where I am in life. I have a stable job, plenty of PTO, and I'm still young, and I see so many things out in the world, and honestly, other people that inspire me to travel and do more things, like spontaneous fun things, and I'm like — why can't that be me? Why can't I do that too? They're doing it, why not me? I think something to help is just looking at other people's travel journeys and seeing other people doing something. If you want to do it and they're doing it, why can't you do it too? I think the best way to start is maybe the all-inclusive resort, or the cruise, or something where it's taking you there and there's a built-in itinerary, but you can still go off and explore a little bit here and there. Maybe you start going to a country where you already speak the language there, like me going to Ireland, or Great Britain, or Canada, or something like that, branching out a little bit further and further, until you're fully, like — want a backpack?

I'm going to convince you, I promise, girl, you'll see. I really like that, I think it's a really good point to say, well, why can't that be me? So then what's next for you, where are you going next, what type of travel?

Next I might be going to Puerto Rico.

I was going to say Mongolia.

See, I'm trying, you can try harder. Puerto Rico, obviously I'd love to go to Greece, I'd love to go — oh my gosh, Portugal would be great, Spain, Madrid, love to go to Aruba. I love a mix between sometimes I want the touristy, like really hitting all of the traveling, like you're up, you're moving, you're grooving, you're visiting things, you're doing things, and then I also love — I'm laying on a beach drinking a mimosa, it's been until 10:30 because I don't care.

That balance.

Yes.

On the travel goal, and what you're looking for out of a trip — I love that. I'm excited for you going into this travel era, as I'm going to call it for you, I'm branding it as that.

Thank you.

So what I like most, and hope whoever was listening kind of got, this new energy or confidence that I too can do that, as well — but with cultural travel, we always talk about cultural travel, obviously — just traveling more meaningfully, because not only are you traveling to a new culture, language, experience, but you're also growing your own confidence for you to bring back to your everyday life.

Yeah.

And with that — meaningful travel is truly for everyone at any stage of life. You don't need to be a millionaire to go experience meaningful travel. You don't need to be in your 20s. I feel like we have the stereotypical 20-year-old backpacker who just decides, I'm going to go and backpack down the Balkans because why not — it's truly for anyone who is ready to try something new and step out of their comfort zone a little bit, to try something out of their comfort zone. So I'd like to leave you guys with the question of, what's one thing that would make you more confident to take your first big cultural trip? So go ahead and reflect on that. I'm going to thank Christine so much for joining — we're going to have another episode with you to talk more about your time in Paris and right before the Olympics. But for everyone else, thank you so much for tuning in. Be sure to check out our website, we're making a lot of development on our travel app, and get ready to travel more deeply and more meaningfully. Thank you. Bye.