Drinking on the road: do you need alcohol to travel?
Traveling often carries with the image of travelers “cutting loose,” doing things they probably wouldn’t do at home. Whether it’s the infamous party towns of coastal Spain, saturated with Brits on holiday, or student travelers taking in the full moon parties during their gap year excursion, for many, traveling and partying seem to go hand in hand.
And of course where there’s partying, there’s generally a bit of alcohol — the universal social lubricant that can turn hostile-looking locals into best friends in a matter of hours. When you think about, there really aren’t a whole lot of other things that can do that (though long, overcrowded bus rides tend to work as well).
There’s an interesting article about drinking on the road over at Brave New Traveler that poses the question: do we need alcohol to connect on the road?
I think most of us would initially say no. But then think about it: when was the last time you were traveling and didn’t spend a few nights sharing a beer with someone at the local watering hole?
As Christine Garvin writes in the article, “when traveling, [alcohol] can be especially helpful in sliding your way into a new situation where you don’t know anyone (especially when traveling alone).”
Personally speaking I know the least amount of people I’ve ever met was in Gujarat, India, perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, an alcohol-free state.
For many of us, there’s a familiar pattern to traveling: day time often consists of doing your own thing, but then nights are spent communally, meeting fellow travelers and locals alike over a pint or glass of wine. Indeed, in many cases even those travelers who don’t drink tend to gravitate toward a hostel’s common area (often a bar) or the local pub.
But alcohol has its downsides for travelers. There’s no faster way to blow your carefully planned budget than a pub crawl in an otherwise very cheap country, to say nothing of alcohol poisoning, the buses you missed because you were too hungover and so on.
So let’s hear it, what do you think of drinking when you’re traveling? Necessary? Not necessary, but fun anyway? Not necessary and too expensive? Where does alcohol fit into your travels?
[photo credit: christian.senger, Flickr]
October 14th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
I find alcohol unnecessary. Being straight-edge at home means I’m always the designated driver. On the road, it becomes a social handicap, because most travelers drink and a lot smoke. For many travelers, an evening drink at the bar seems to be more important than a morning stroll thru town.
Luckily, I don’t travel to meet other travelers. I travel to meet locals. And, during my travels, I’ve found locals to be much more understanding (of my desire to avoid alcohol) than travelers.
I’m glad I’m straightedge because it means I have more time, money and energy to devote to the actual “traveling” part.
October 14th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Not necessary, but important to me.
I’ve found that having whatever the local drink of choice is with said locals is part of my connection and immersion in people and places. In my opinion, it’s a worthy expenditure to have the experience (even better if you’re invited to someone’s home for some homebrew of some ilk) and bridge gaps, I’ve many times felt more “acceptance” when sharing this custom.
Plus it’s just downright enjoyable.
October 14th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
It never ceases to amaze me how many people I meet that tell me they “only smoke when I’m traveling.” Seems like a strange thing to do when you’re traveling, but you know, to each their own.
October 14th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
I usually do a fair bit of drinking while traveling, nothing too excessive, but it often is the go-to activity when you’ve just arrived somewhere new and want to meet some people. I also really like to sample local beers and wines, which, in my opinion, is not unlike tasting the local food as it’s just another way of getting to know the culture. However, thinking back to the last time I went abroad, it was quite the opposite for me. My first night I went to a local pub and had a beer but the atmosphere was not conducive to socializing, at least for me, and I left having spoken to only a couple of people very briefly. The next few days, I ended up connecting quite well with a trio of travelers and not a drop of alcohol was drunk. It didn’t even occur to me how unusual this was until after the trip was over and I was reflecting upon it. We were having such a good time without alcohol that the idea wasn’t even bounced around once.
October 14th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
I think it can be a double-edged sword. It’s so easy to slip into the nightly social routine of drinking a few cheap beers with new friends at the hostel/bungalow/campground that you might not realize the effects on your body.
While some hangovers are going to be worse then others, I noticed even a drink or two the night before was enough to change the way I might spend a day. Sometimes it was sleeping late on a regular basis in my bungalow like in Thailand, while other times it was skipping more active endeavors.
I remember taking a 3-day rafting trip in Nepal last year, and purposefully abstaining from alcohol while everyone else was all about having a few beers (and the potent local spirit) after our days of rafting. I seriously felt like the odd man out, in an effort to save my energy for the river.
October 14th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
I wrote precisely about why I don’t need to drink as I travel, in particular when I am speaking foreign languages.
Alcohol is completely unnecessary for socialising. The PUB is necessary, simply as a way of gathering people interesting in socialising in one place. Throwing some liquid down your throat just because everyone else is, is not being social. The parts between the drinks; the actual talking, is the social part.
The alcohol industry is very clever in getting people to think that they can’t have fun without a few beers, or making it seem like life is unhealthy without wine. I go out several times a week, am the first person on the dance floor and the first to sing at karaokes and I run on nothing but orange juice. To this day nobody has explained to me why I would want to throw away money, my ability to think clearly and my liver just so I can be another sheep and do what everyone else does…
Sadly I have to lie and tell people that I’ve already got a drink “waiting for me”, rather than pointlessly try to convince them that some of us don’t need beer’s permission to have fun…
October 14th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Saddling up to the hostel bar was a great way for me to meet people when I was backpacking.
October 14th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
I went for over a year without drinking while backpacking throughout the Middle East. Never missed it for a moment. A lot easier to not drink there than at home where everyone is always out at pubs and such.
October 15th, 2009 at 1:46 am
I think it completely depends on the situation. I’ll enjoy going out for a beer or a sake about as much as I do at home, but a cup of tea is just as enjoyable.
October 16th, 2009 at 12:51 am
I can’t drink much, if at all (as evidenced the last time I tied one on in Thailand). But I rarely find that it affects my ability to socialize. Like Benny (#6) said, going to the pub can be a great social outlet, but going there doesn’t mean drinking there.
Besides, alcohol isn’t particularly in my budget. As I watch a friend who is planning for a backpacking trip and having to allocate serious funds to support his drinking habit while abroad, I realize I would rather do so many other things with the money than drink it.
October 16th, 2009 at 1:13 am
The intellectual lubrication that alcohol affords cannot be underestimated. Go forth & prosper, but go forth with a quart under your belt & another up your sleeve for many a fine young thing has been spoiled by sobriety. Hunker down in a bar, guzzle the local brew, fire up the moonshine with a yokel & you shall be privy to the very heart of what it is to be human. Abstain at your peril fellow traveler.
October 21st, 2009 at 8:30 pm
I drink a lot more than most at home, so traveling ends up being a kind of rehab for me….kind of. I often end up in countries without much of a drinking/pub culture (China, Morocco, etc), which I miss, and I’m not usually at hostels, but what I love is drinking random local drinks at hole-in-the-wall restaurants (phrasebook in hand), or back in the room by myself (while I plan out the next day or watch nutty local TV). And I don’t usually have the energy to rock out too much, but have enough to wind me down, and/or put me to sleep.
I haven’t thought about it much, but if I had an opinion on it, I would say the whole “hostel drunk” thing is kind of lame. I always think of it as a European backpacking thing, and I didn’t visit there until I was late 20s. Being in a hostel in, say, Czech republic is going back to high school or something. And I don’t really think of it as traveling, even though it obviously is. In Asia, tourist drinking cultures also get out of hand -Bangkok, or Koh Phangan- and can be just as lame if you forget what you’re doing there in the first place.
On the other hand, I remember showing up in a Central Asian city at 8am, and was in an abandoned kiosk drinking vodka with cheese and crackers by 10. I know it’s not everyone’s M.O., but to me there is a beautiful memory in getting smashed with crazy locals before noon (and when you still haven’t found your hotel). As much so as gorgeous sights, interesting border crossings, or whatever. And, like a previous poster mentioned, sampling local brew can be as significant as eating local food, if that’s what you dig.
And, it’s a bit arrogant/myopic to swear off drinking all together, without a decent health excuse, re: alcoholic. In lots of places (Korea, Russia, etc.), drinking is understood differently It doesn’t come with the baggage (or considerations of wellness :-)) or orientation that the west places on it, and at times, I consider it an obligation to “bottoms up”.
October 21st, 2009 at 11:19 pm
I’m not saying it’s right for everyone, but I learned everything I need to know about humanity in a very far flung bar where the world went by and nationalities collided with each other. In fact, many of my best friends are bartenders because I enjoy, as they do, informal studies of humanity and the things humanity will get around to telling you if you put a beer in hand. Do I stay in touch with these people? Sure. Some of my best nights have turned into spans travelling with, living with, and otherwise enjoying the company of others I wouldn’t have otherwise met.
I will say: hooking up drunk is totally overrated, not memorable, and prone to disaster.
November 12th, 2009 at 12:36 am
Thanks, Scott, for continuing the conversation. One thing that came to mind when I was reading the comments to your piece is the fact that some people have the personality to be non-drinkers. I’m sure most people wish they had it in them (comfort, social smoothness, whathaveyou) to just talk freely and openly with anyone without the lubrication of alcohol. Unfortunately, many of us are not there.
I just moved into a new area, and once again, realize going to a bar or pub and having a drink IS a way to meet people. That said, I have had many wonderful experiences with people that I got to know another way, say through dance, or yoga, or signing up for some daytime adventure where a drop of alcohol wasn’t necessary to make a tight bond. But we don’t always have those opportunities, where fortunately or unfortunately, most of the time, we have the opportunity to meet people at the local watering hole.