Travelling is something a lot of people have started getting into these days. It could be for a vacation, visiting family, a business trip or who knows what not.

I spent an entire year in Paris, and one thing I realised was that you’ll never learn anything about any place if you just visit the tourist spots. I’m a weird breed. I do not enjoy museums, I don’t enjoy very touristy monuments and I definitely do not enjoy sitting in a touristy area in the midst of other tourists carrying huge DSLRs and trying to take pictures of almost everything.

Every time I travel with my parents, we always end up doing touristy things. This way we do see things around the city we are in but we never get to experience the culture of the city. We don’t get to experience the current interests or popular things going on in the city.

Earlier this year, I traveled to Amsterdam with a friend, and as soon as I stepped out of my bus, I knew I wasn’t going to see even one museum. Instead, I wanted to walk down the streets of Amsterdam and see what it was like being one of the locals. I wanted to walk into a place and buy a 2 euro slice of pizza for dinner after being exhausted. I wanted to ride a bicycle and see how it felt to be part of the crowd. That’s exactly what I did.

Four days in Amsterdam, instead of visiting museums and eating at fancy places, I walked around the city as if I was one of the locals. I rode a bicycle, walked or took the metro almost everywhere I went. Amsterdam is pretty small so I ended up walking a lot. I ate at small joints where food was the cheapest of all. I didn’t see what most people go to Amsterdam to see, instead I lived. I experienced their true culture. The smoking, the eating, the commuting.

It was good. It was different. I found out so much about the city in just four days that no one would have figured in a week if they just focused on doing all the touristy stuff.

 

So tell me, am I travelling correctly? Is there even a way to travel correctly?

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