Travel pointers from Catherine Watson

In the course of her recent World Hum interview, travel editor Catherine Watson outlined a few items of her travel philosophy. I found this advice so apt for vagabonding in general that I’ll reproduce it here:

• Go everywhere you can.
• Be passionately curious.
• Talk to everyone who’ll let you, especially the quiet people.
• Stay till the bitter end. If the ceremonial lasts all day, so do you—you never know what’ll happen at the end.
• Be able to turn on a dime. Throw out your itinerary if something better comes along, and it always will.
• Don’t sweat the small stuff—or the bad beds, or the bed bugs, or the wet shoes or whatever. The discomforts will pass, the shoes will dry, and the memories will last.
• And maybe more than anything: Commit to the trip. Commit to the moment. Really be there.

Catherine Watson’s new book is entitled Roads Less Traveled: Dispatches from the Ends of The Earth. Full World Hum interview online here.