Within the backpacker lexicon there is a certain unwritten assumption that everything must be done on the most severe cheap. That all corners must be cut, as one must go without as much as possible to become this Champion of Cheap.

One of the first lessons we learn on the road is that travel is not as expensive as we might have assumed. Living a lifestyle that affords long term vagabonding reduces your needs to quite a small amount of things. However, one thing that I absolutely refuse to compromise is my palate. Not only am I vagabonding in search of new unique experiences and insight to other cultures, I am also a culinary vagabond.

I absolutely refuse to live on fast food and convenience store fare to scrape a few extra dollars while traveling. For me, one of the most amazing things to experience while traveling is the different traditions in food that are found around the globe. Certain areas of the world are rich in roots and herbs and spices that we may never have tasted, or indeed heard of, back home.

I’ve seen travelers opt out of the robust sauces and fresh breads in Rome, freshly caught fish in Essaouira, and hearty goulash in Budapest, all in favor of generic packaged food from the local convenience store. I have to wonder, was it worth the thrift?

There is so much to learn from a place simply by taking one full meal. In Korea it is bad luck for any of your belongings to touch the floor while seated in a restaurant or café. In England resting your cutlery on the table means you have finished with your meal. In France you clink glasses and toast while looking your companions directly in the eyes. Don’t do that last one in Korea, though.

Moreover, drastically adjusting your diet to live on cheap packaged food while on the road can compromise your health. It can leave you feeling sluggish or lower your immune system and leave you prone to illness while you are traveling.

Some travelers may assume that experiencing the local fare and eating well means emptying your pockets. However, some of the best local eats are found for the equivalent of a few dollars from the area street vendors, or in small kitchens off the beaten path.

We’ve cut excess from our off the road life in order to make room for travel, but have we somehow unintentionally been cutting out certain on the road experiences that are not to be missed?

What else will we go without? Maybe we won’t climb that volcano in Central America because it’s just a few Quetzales too pricey for us. Maybe we won’t visit that monastery in Myanmar to save on transit fare. Is thrift limiting our experiences?

The BVI Spring Regatta lures sailors and landlubbers to the British Virgin Islands to watch sailing vessels tear across the warm Caribbean waters. This year’s regatta, held March 29 to April 4, adds the BVI Windsurfing Championship to the mix. Every night, the Regatta Village features beach parties and cookouts, calypso bands and limbo jump-ups.

Semana Santa, or Holy Week, is celebrated in many Latin American countries in the week leading up to Easter (April 4). Notable celebrations are in Antigua, Guatemala; Popayán, Colombia; and Ayacucho, Peru.

The Feria Nacional de San Marcos in Aguascalientes, Mexico, is the country’s oldest fair. Dating from 1604, it runs for three solid weeks—from April 17 to May 9, 2010—and is focused around the town’s San Marcos Gardens. See some of the best bullfights in Mexico, find a souvenir from the roaming vendors, get serenaded by a mariachi band, or sample all the gastronomic delights. Be sure to hang in for the evening firework displays.

The Cinco de Mayo (May 5th) celebration in Puebla, Mexico, honors the Mexican victory over the French army in the 1862 Battle of Puebla. It’s not the country’s Independence Day (that’s Sept. 16), but Puebla’s celebration includes a gigantic parade, mariachi bands as well as more food and drink stands than you can possibly visit. Don’t miss the parade; with the Mexican Army, cultural icons and music bands, it’s the most important part of the day’s festivities.

Illustration: Azby Brown

The news is full these days about a “green revolution.” Is it really the wave of the future? Or is it actually a return to the past, when living in harmony with the environment was standard practice?

The Tokyo expat magazine Metropolis published excerpts from a new work titled Just Enough: Lessons in Living Green from Traditional Japan.

Author Azby Brown also produced dazzling drawings of rural life in Japan, from houses to ordinary people. It causes one to pause and reflect on how our quest for modernity has caused us to lose our connection to the world.

Have you seen traditional practices abroad that could be used for green living at home? Please share in the comments.

Ko Phangan, Thailand

Not many years ago (in the grand scheme of things), most of us were in diapers, not yet knowing what country we were from or even what a country. We didn’t yet know we were Christian, Muslim, Skeptical, or whatever. We didn’t know we were Republican or Democrat, male or female, or that we needed to fear and maybe hate one another, or that this might lead us one day to kill or be killed. As babies we looked out at the world with wide eyes, reaching out for anything we could grab, wanting to feel and understand it. We were open to learning and we trusted, even when it wasn’t wise to trust. And then — well, we became adults.

The paragraph and photo above are pulled from my book 30 Reasons to Travel: Photographs and Reflections from Southeast Asia. Others more famous than me have mentioned babies as well. Carl Sandburg, for example, wrote that “a baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.” And this from Vincent van Gogh: “If one feels the need of something grand, something infinite, something that makes one feel aware of God, one need not go far to find it. I think that I see something deeper, more infinite, more eternal than the ocean in the expression of the eyes of a little baby when it wakes in the morning and coos or laughs because it sees the sun shining on its cradle.”

So what does all this have to do with travel?

First, babies model some of the traits a good traveler might wish to cultivate, particular wonder and an openness toward learning. To prepare for your trip, read a guidebook but also consider sitting down in front of a baby for a few minutes and seeing how they relate to the world. I love the image of a baby grasping for the moon because he or she has not yet mastered the concept of distance.

Second, if you’re traveling alone for an extended period and find yourself feeling down (as I sometimes do), having a local family put their baby in your arms, even for a second, will do more for your spirits that any bottle of beer. Every now and then, at least in the developing world, a family will ask me to hold their baby so they can take a picture of him or her in the arms of a Westerner. I never say no.

We travelers usually don’t wear diapers, but may we have something of the spirit of those babies who do (and those babies who don’t!).

Today we started a new project – clearing a large grade school, L’Ecole Trinitie, where many children died during the earthquake on January 12th. While we’ve been told that all the bodies have been removed, we may still come across more. The work is back-breaking, first using pickaxes to break up the rubble, then shovels to load the wheelbarrows, and then pushing them into the street.

In just a few days I’ve become accustomed to the sight of destruction such that it seems normal. Rubble is everywhere, many second floors are now the first, and tents line the streets. But what I find heartening is that everyone I see is carrying on, running their shops from the street, smiling, laughing, playing music, washing laundry, and zipping up and down roads on the motorcycles that outnumber all other vehicles, honking their horns in a complex form of conversation. Even as the effects of the tragedy are everywhere, the Haitian spirit seems to shine above the debris, giving everyone a sense that life continues on.

Initiation ceremony — it conjures images of torchlight processions, Masonic robes, fratboys with paddle bruises, Navy SEALs hoisting logs. Initiation ceremonies mark a transition from one place to another, and it’s often more of a psychological step than a physical one.

While settling into what I’ll call  “India mode” over the past two weeks, I’ve been trying to observe the initiation rites of travel — the tiny events that accumulate into a feeling of comfort in a foreign country.

Some are things that happen to us — things beyond our control. The choices the bus driver makes. The buffalo that blocks our path. The power outage in the internet cafe. The midnight buzzsaw beneath the hotel window. The stares.

Some we bring upon ourselves. The trip to the barber. What we accidentally step in. The foray into public transportation. The first bite of street food. The first dance.

Fellow travelers also have been noting their progress — they make announcements like, “This is my first hot kathi roll in 3 years!” or, “I thought I forgot how to squat.”

What initiation rituals help you immerse yourself in a journey?

Photo “Sara likes bugs” by Michael Sarver via Flickr.

Sullivan McLeod and surfboard

One of the gifts of aiming big is that sometimes, you actually reach your goals.  It’s all too easy to fall into the idea that if you’ve never done something before, well, then, you probably can’t do it at all, or at least not right away.  You’ve never lived abroad?  Best not to jump into it; maybe start with living in a different state.  Can’t run? Stay out of triathlons.

Or, you could throw caution to the winds, and aim for the sky.  Sullivan McLeod, an author, traveler, and sometime bookstore worker in the small Australian town of Margaret River (which is where I met him), is going on a rodeo tour in the southern US…despite never actually having ridden a horse until recently, and never having been trained in rodeo at all.

Similarly, the participants in the North Pole Marathon do include some longtime runners…but also include a 14-year old girl (and her dad) and a Romanian who wants to become the first to play drums at the North Pole.  Some of them just woke up one morning and decided: I want to do this.  And they did.

There’s that old platitude that says: If you believe you can, or you believe you can’t, you’re right.  What might YOU do, if it didn’t seem impossible?

Safe sex while traveling

A recent Swiss study of 59,000 respondents found that women and men travelers are prone to different diseases while on the road.  The study found that female travelers are more prone to gastrointestinal ailments, particularly traveler’s diarrhea (bring your rehydration kits, ladies!), colds, and reactions to medications taken for traveling, such as anti-malarials.  Women are also more prone to urinary tract infections, as is actually true in the greater, non-traveling population as well.

Male voyagers are at higher risk of fevers — that’s what comes from not taking your anti-malarials, guys! — and STDs, as well as altitude sickness and frostbite.  Obviously it’s difficult to tell if the sex differences indicate that men and women actually SUFFER from different diseases, or just that they are more likely to seek treatment for these diseases.  In the case of STDs, 1% of male travelers in the study sought treatment for an STD at a clinic, and past research has shown that men are more likely to have sex with someone they meet overseas than women are.

To this end, consider this your public safety announcement: ladies and men, bring and wear condoms!  The study says, “Safe sex advice is a missing component in most pretravel practices and our study suggests that male travelers, in particular, would benefit from greater preventive efforts.”  You might have remembered your Imodium and iodine and Larium and azithromycin, but all you need to protect your personal bits and potentially save your life is two condoms in an easy-to-carry container.

Also, guys: take it easy with altitude adjustments. And women: watch what you eat.

Sometimes travelers feel like they can only be instrumental while on the road, or that their services as a volunteer only fall within the spontaneity of their on-the-road lifestyle. Don’t let yourself fall into this trap. If you have experience in service related volunteer work, you know just how instrumental one person can be. If you’re wondering if it’s really worth it, chances are the answer is a resounding yes.

What will we bring back from our time on the road? Of course we will be filled with new insights to other cultures and even ourselves, but what kind of service can we bring back? How can we take some of the skills that we have learned along the road and make them valuable enough that others benefit from them once we return home?

Why not turn your flare for teaching ESL around, and offer to volunteer teaching a foreign language at your local area grade school, kindergarten, or summer camp while you’re in the States? Sure, teaching at any level in America comes with a list of required credentials and background checks. However, upon learning about my interest in foreign languages and my history of teaching ESL, I have been invited to teach master classes in French at local grade schools and speak about travel and language learning opportunities at local high schools in my hometown.

Even if they only invite you to teach once a month, or even once a semester, it’s novel experiences such as these that will stay with a child right up until they are ready to choose a major in college – or decide to go vagabonding for a year before beginning their studies.

Friends that I have made on the road have brought their skills back home and started volunteering in local dive shops. One friend trekked the Appalachian Trail and came home to volunteer with local Boy Scout groups and shared the tips he’d learned on wilderness survival and edible plants in the wild. I’ve met people who were endeared to the economic struggle of certain destitute regions they’ve traveled. One friend returned home such a place and got involved with local organizations and now does talks in high schools to spread awareness.

As we travel we are constantly assaulted with new sensations, new ways of life, new philosophies or religions. Why not volunteer and share your experiences and the information you have learned? Teach a cooking class after you return home from those years teaching in Korea? Start a Flamenco class at your local community center when you get back from Chile. What can you bring home from the road?

(Photo credit: bbc.co.uk)