Free Independent Travel

35 years domestic & foreign independent solo travel

I. Prelude

Now, for whatever reason(s), you apparently have decided to investigate the possibility of independent solo foreign travel.

“Good on ya, Mate” (Aussie term)

A. "FIT" Definition:

(or Free Independent Traveler)

OPT#1:
FIT is a solo traveler (couple?) who accepts total responsibility & risk for their own customized itinerary's research, planning, safety, execution and trip's ultimate fulfillment.

OPT#2:
FIT is a Solo Traveler whose customized itinerary's research, planning, safety, execution AND its ultimate pleasurable fulfillment are their total responsibility & risk.

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ADD ON:???

With no dependence on cruise or large bus tour companies or other's canned itineraries .... except for practical necessary day tour packages.

or

Conciously avoids cushy, pampered cruises and tight scheduled, fast paced large bus tours, .... ONLY using daytrip cruises & tours when practical or necessary.

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B. CHARACTERISTICS of a solo (FIT) traveler?

1. Curiosity-driven, alert for unique, unexpected, remote,
authentic, dramatic & seamy
2. Distasteful, expected & spectacular: cultural experiences
3. Full responsibility for all risks & gains: safety, health, itinerary,
& Complications
4. Freedom without compromise, so she usually travels alone,
5. Flexibility to change direction or plans on a whim,
6. Solitude to focus, reflect, and contemplate everything: yet
open to others
7. Recognizes ‘Life’s a test of personal character.
8. Travels ‘poor, ’ regardless of net worth, to better connect with
the host culture’s roots.
9. ‘being lost’, is expected, sometimes unnerving, but stimulating
10. Research & planning preparation:
11. Highly practical equipment: self-modified. essential
boots/socks, rainproof jacket,
12. No recognition sought for travels

(Dig deeper).

Anecdotes: ...some independent solo travelers I have met:
1. A young woman traveling the world solo on her bike.
2. A middle-aged woman who had traveled continuously for 10
years around the world.
3. Two 80+ year old men from Canada's McKenzie River traveling
Argentina.
4. 30 yr old man: motorcycling from Canada's farthest North to tip
of Argentia.
5. A young man: ... descending my Normandy hostel's stairs to breakfast, I paused, ... captivated by a young man's aacounts of the almost like he was reading from an atlas’ index. many countries he had visited on his 9-month world odyssey. --- almost like he was reading from an atlas’ index. 😀
almost like he was reading from an atlas’ index. 😀
almost like he was reading from an atlas’ index. 😀

C. "limits" of A FIT traveler? Almost none!

The 'FIT" traveler seeks intimate immersion,
while the tourist seeks diversion.

An independent solo traveler’s options are limited only by their imagination, research & planning, physical well-being, prudent judgment, some money, and initiative. Independent travelers can go almost everywhere.

FIT travelers Limiting Factors ANECDOTES:
Jarom: NOTE: I can/will flesh these out
Physical well-being: SGWTs, CdeS trek (back doors: bike, bus etc.)
Research & Plan: 95% not includng serendipitous discoveries, India's Stepwell unknown to tourists.
Serendipitous Discovery: Antigua, Guatemala lady weaving serape in her home door way, Albania's "hello', Great Wall's 'off-limits'
UN-discovered portions.
Open-mindedness: Mosque's, HK Chungking Mansions, Aussie
ranch ground sleeping,
Wise spending: hostel's dorms & kitchens,
Prudent risk: Laos motrocycle overnight back roads trips, mmm

The more an independent traveler avoids the usual tourist cruisers and large bus tourists, the deeper their possible travel immersion in the host country's culture, the more frequent discovery of 'hidden' sites & experiences.

Anecdote: 1st communist Myanmar visit: While in Chaing Mai, Thailand I learned that the Mai Sai border crossing into dictatorial Myanmar was only open to travelers if you paid your entry fee in US dollars which they needed for foreign trade. Scary at 1st, but uneventful. Curiosity drove me.

Several hour self-guided walking tour inside repressive Myanmar

Years later when Myanmar fully opened again, I spent 3 very interesting weeks traveling thru Myanmar: many random self-guided walking tours throughout its Yangon capital's streets & historic markets, motor scootering amongst Bagan's hundreds of ancient temples with NO tourists & a lacquerware shop, a deep dive into legendary Mandaly's magninicent temple complexes &, finally, a solo roostertail boat ride on Inle Lake & boatman's floating village home.

D. Mix all 3 Travel Kinds?

While I am focused on ‘solo independent travel it is usually easy, exciting & often, time & cost efficient to mix all 3 -- “FIT, large bus tours & cruising.

For example, during 'free time' cruisers and large bus tour travelers may make a self-guided walking tour thru one of Sydney, Australia's historic areas: 'The Rocks", Macquarie Street, Hyde Park Barracks or nearby Cockatoo Island or take a Sydney Harbour cruise.

Most travelers may relish a walkabout’s serendipitous freedom. Every combination is possible.

Anecdote: My Argentina/Chile trip. In 2007, I did a 3-month solo independent self-guided jaunt thru Argentina by bus mixed with day tours.

An Argentina daytrip & cruise …

THEN, a small cruise ship from Ushuaia, ARG through Beagle Channel up Chile’s west coast to Valparaiso,including a Torres del Paine National Park van day-tour & hike ...

Daytour into Torres del Paine National Park

THEN, more buses & day tours thru out Chile. I'm leaving out a lot. 😃.

II. GOALs of a (FIT) free independent traveler!

The solo traveler seeks the true essence of a culture; it's famous as well as tourist-ignored historical, cultural & natural wonders AND equally compelling, its ‘down-in-the-dirt’ gritty underbelly.

They obsessively explore the sights, smells & sounds swirling around them: Barcelona's Sagrada Familia's soaring colorful towers, an Indian street-food vendor's tantalizing aromas, and an Italian village's Mediterranean shore's lapping waves.

A FIT traveler is NOT a tourist. The ‘tourist’ pretends ‘ to ‘experience the culture’ protected by the capsule of a bus or taxi … shepherded by an all-knowing guide & … nestled securely each night in a cruise ship’s cabin or a tour company’s efficiency hotel … constantly wiping away the dirty culture’s imagined debris from their clothes.

Today’s free independent traveler is a “Renaissance Man’: a 14th-century notion that men (there were some women) should pursue all knowledge & experiences, including the uplifting & uncomfortable, and develop all skills within their capacity.

Always seeking 'what's around the next corner."

A FIT traveler's goals are often 3-fold:
A) deeply research & explore Tier 1 sites: most iconic tourist sites,
B) ferret out & deeply explore Tier 2 sites: uniquely interesting but
seldom visited.
C) more immersion in a culture's authentic, often gritty,
back-street underbelly.

Travel Buds: ... Tier 1 & 2 sites

Travel guidebooks, the internet, and your brain are packed with Tier 1 sites. Throughout your lifetime of education, public media, reading, videos, & even the news .... you have amassed an inventory of foreign sitmes & experiences that intrigued you. I now call those travel tidbits ‘Travel Buds’.

Like tiny rose buds, these near-infinite numbered ‘Travel Buds’ are potential travel ideas lying asleep in your mind ‘under the snow’ waiting for you to thaw them out & turn them into Spring’s travel targets.

Anecdote: some of my Travel Buds:
Audrey Hepburn’s “Two for the Road’: a romantic European travel fantasy movie. Premise: Audrey is vacationing in Europe with a clutch of girlfriends and falls in love with young, solo, independent traveler Albert Finney (think old guy in Bourne movies). Sometime later, I traveled to Europe on a free Dating Game TV show contest trip and fantasized my own "Two for the Road", but alas, "Nada; no romance."

Brad Pitt’s “Seven Years in Tibet”; triggered 3 months in China: I was awed by Heinrich Harrer (Pitt), an Austrian mountaineer's treacherous trekking adventure from India POW camp to Tibet, & the profoundly unique relationship between he & the young Dalai Lama.

I could only fantasize about such a life experience as Harrer's fully described in his eponymous autobiographical book for myself. In some tangential way it motivated my 3 month China trip.

Research your Travel Buds to confirm & increase your curiosity & anticipation. Then, begin creating your foreign travel itinerary. The more you research & learn about your trip, the more excited you will become to travel and explore more deeply.

This Travel Bud ‘resurrection’ can be an exciting discovery adventure itself.

A. Famous Tier 1 tourist sites: hopefully with a novel twist.

Ocassionally by design or luck, a major Tier 1 site provides a very novel experience far outside the average touyrist's experiences. An ondepedent traveler's quick eye or a wise habit creates those situations.

Anecdote 1: Athen's Parthenon: In college art class, I learned that the Athenian Parthenon has intentional optical illusions. Its 'stylobate' (platform for columns to rest) and surrounding steps are bowed upward by varying amounts on different sides while the columns are bowed outward to create the illusion of horizontal and vertical perfection Fascinating stuff that, in part drove me to Greece.

Anecdote 2: China’s Great Wall: hiking quasi-off limits & abandoned sections. China's Great Wall is a vast, discontinuous system of sections & spurs crossing different terrains built in different eras. Several are popular, well-restored tourist sections, occasionally a 'no access' section, and rarely a totally ignored unrestored section.

Anecdote 1a: hiking quasi-off limits sections. China's Great Wall is a vast, discontinuous system of sections & spurs crossing different terrains built in different eras. Several are popular, well-restored tourist sections, occasionaly a 'no access' section, and rarely a totally ignored unrestored section.

Ocassionally, I dropped down a few feet from a tower window to hike those 'no access' spurs. I wasn't the 1st, but I saw no others. I was extremely cautious where the narrow bushy trail had broken away downhill. I enjoyed the cautious thrill of going carefully where most did not.

Anecdote 1b: abandoned sections: Returning from Jiumenkou Great Wall section by tuk-tuk, across the fields I spotted an unrestored Great Wall section immediately north of the Disney-fied Jioshan Great Wall section at Qinhuangdao city. I tapped my driver on the shoulder, pointed to the unfinished section, paid him his full fare & with tip, sending him on his way, and started walking across the fields and up on top of the unnamed unrestored section.

The top was mostly a simple dirt path on the top of the wall, used now only by locals. It was a mix of unrestored towers & stone-faced walls, much of wall’s original stone having been cannibalized for local construction.

Somehow, I felt a warm affinity to the original wall, its early soldiers, and construction workers perhaps because I could see the Wall’s innards as well as some finished, but deteriorated portions. These insights are the true traveler’s delight. (dig deeper)

Ancdote 2: Teotihuacan, Mexico’s huge pre-Aztec ruins: before all tourists ... to sit alone on Temple of the Moon.

Arriving late afternoon in the small town of San Juan Teotihuacán, next morning, I was at Teotihuacán’s gate an hour before Entry time because I had learned that when early & 1^st, I can create opportunities.

I chatted with entry ticket folks a bit when they suddenly asked if I wanted to enter early. I was all smiles to enter almost an hour before all but maintenance crew. I roamed around this massive site by myself as though I were Elvis.

First, wandering through the vast complex down to Quetzalcoatl Temple & Citadel (Temple of the Feathered Serpent), then walking casually back up Avenue of the Dead’s 2.5 miles…. soaking in the magnitude & grandeur of this historically mysterious complex …. to the Temple of the Moon.

I climbed the Temple of the Moon as high as allowed, sat down, and pulled out a book to read, NOT because my book thrilled me, but rather because I was thrilled that I was the only tourist …. with the luxury to indulge my reading amid that colossal historical site of generations of human life.

Truly one of my most memorable travel moments.

B. Unique, but seldom visited Tier 2 sites; Tier 2 sites are often worthwhile, but either too small to accommodate large tour groups, too far off the beaten track for most, too esoteric or too inaccessible for large tour vehicles. Yet, they may be the most unique & exciting.

Anecdote 1: Argentina's Cuevos de las Manos prehistoric handprint site: Traveling down Andes Mtns east by bus about 163 km (101 mi) south of Perito Moreno on Ruta 40's long dirt road & 8 mi east (may be paved now) is Cueva de las Manos (Cave of Hands) named for hundreds of ancient man's stencil painted hands on the rock walls. You gotta want to be here.

Anecdote 2: Romania's Bucovina painted monastery & Spanta cemetery of uniquely painted wooden tombstones.

I assume you're asking about the Painted Monasteries of Bucovina! These are a group of Romanian Orthodox monasteries located in the Bucovina region of northeastern Romania, renowned for their stunning exterior and interior frescoes. Built primarily in the 15th and 16th centuries,

designed to educate the largely illiterate population of the time through vivid biblical imagery,

Anecdote 3: Edinburgh’s Icelandic Phallological (penis) Museum: (Oh yeah, they're serious.) LOL! I stumbled across this museum by chance during my last day’s self-guided walking tour. It was a startling, fascinating, esoteric (to say the least), & sometimes humbling (think whales) experience.

Anecdote 4: somewhat remote Lijiashan Village: A couple of overnights in a village carved literally out of the mountain's rock AND well-off-the-beaten track (2 bus rides, a mile road hike & a trek up a steep mountain road. 😀) I poked around this unique village with beautifully wood-carved fronts to their stone cave homes. I slept on a khan bed & ate her meals cooked over her wood-burning stove.

This 1st video peeks inside a quickly ABANDONED home with everything simply left in place (kids left for the cities, elderly died off) shows the brick 'khan' bed more often sculpted out of the bed rock. 2nd video shows how I/we used it.

C. Cultural Immersion:
1. Travel Infrastructure: transportation, lodging,
& food

2. Gritty back-street underbelly: A FIT traveler's self-guided walking tour walking either aimlessly or between sites alert for any scintilla of cultural authenticity or uniqueness. While searching, they are basking in the smells, sounds & visuals of a culture ever alert for something interesting that pulls them off their route and down another path.

I am always probing a culture's underbelly, its 'hidden' traveler's wealth: a dark Cairo street opening to a streetside livestock market, the pristine narrow old neighborhoods of Noto, Sicily contrasted with the filthy swilled streets of India; a casual buying trip thru Vietnam's large open market tourists groups quickly skirt; a pre-dawn Camino de Santiago trek thru a tiny stone house village into rolling fields of vineyards.

I am always drawn far from the tourist areas into Bangkok, Saigon & Tokyo's city blocks of strangely quiet labyrinths of intimate narrow streets & alleys and their curiously peaceful neighborhoods. Even in heavily touristed Florence, Italy a walkabout literally drips of its past culture with Roman building remnants jutting like 'art' out of new building's corners to preserve them.

A FIT traveler sees Cairo’s 1900s beauty under its grime, feels & enjoys New Zealand’s jungle mud oozing into their Croc shoes, deeply inhales an Italian’s hearty luncheon aroma wafting from a kitchen window & firmly shakes the offered calloused hand of an Ecuadorian laborer.

FIT travelers achieve their goals by capitalizing on their prized freedom's autonomy to control as much as possible .... all elements of their travel, including the flexibility to alter their plans whenever & however they wish, … even while traveling. FIT travelers seldom rely on pre-packaged tours, travel agencies, or group arrangements. Truly independent, yet occasionally use day tour for convenience!

Their pre-trip research & planning informs what their senses explore
undistracted by a guide's constant commentary.

Anecdote 1: Agra’s neighborhood (Taj Mahal): In Agra, there is a lovely tree-lined Boulevard between Taj Mahal and Agra Fort, principally to make tourists feel comfortable by avoiding India's usual filthy environs. It was my main route back to my hostel if I chose to take it, but I chose a different route, seeking the cultural reality of Agra's 'hidden' neighborhoods.

In these back streets, children play soccer on vacant lots as raw sewage trickles endlessly down the middle of their streets. Where I, in elderly desperation, felt comfortably un-embarrassed, peeing against a vacant lot's well-stained wall.

My 'India Reflections': Bundi, India's gorgeously dressed low-caste Dalit sewage women: (excerpt from my "Allegra Letters") "Yesterday, exiting my authentic, but primitive home-converted hostel into India's hazy morning sun and dragging my rolling bag down a street to the bus, 2 women in their traditionally brilliantly gorgeous finery had apparently been working for several hours already digging the sewage & filth out of the 8" wide open gutters along both sides of the street. Their amassed piles of sewage-soaked ‘filth’ was 1 1/2’ high; the smell — foul." (Click above link to full India Reflection's writing.)

Shame on a 'caste' society that can send rockets to space.

CAUTION: While my comments drip with disdain, I SEEK to experience everything I can as part of my Renaissance Man ideal persona. India was one of my life's richest experiences, perhaps because of its exotic history, culture, AND its 180° contrast with USA.

Anecdote 2:Hong Kong’s Chungking Mansions’ ‘hostel’: my lowest quality hostel: After 2+months traveling inexpensive mainland China’s hostels etc, this (me) cheapskate was appalled at Hong Kong prices and naively scraped the bottom of the barrel and reserved a room in a "hostel" inside Chunking Mansions.Hey, it sounded good.😌. In fact, ‘hostel’ was simply their 'clickbait' for attracting the destitute & trusting (Ha!). Dig Deeper

2nd level link content:

Chungking Mansion 'hostel' LOL

Chungking Mansion is a huge building divided vertically into 4 Lego-like stacks each with its own bank of elevators. The main floor is a chaotic cacophony of every nationality in that part of the world, each ricocheting off each other in frantic bargaining for the infinite variety of goods offered in its endless shops.

Once again I realized I was the only white person in a huge gaggle of cultures, races, languages & dialects, and clothing, hair & beard styles. At 1^st the coward in me was frightened, but each time I passed in & out I realized no one consciously noticed me and I became less anxious, … even enjoying being part of this exotic throng.

My single room had 2 small beds lined along left side wall, a shower, toilet & sink. I laid my Cocoon sleeping bag liner, I always carried just for these rare moments to protect me from dicey-looking sheets & blankets & their critters.

A small single window looked out across a shaft PIK K10 supposedly giving light & air to everything in the building, a lá 19th-century NYC tenement houses. I actually got used to the jangling pots & pans & kinda enjoyed the pungent garlic smell wafting from the restaurant directly across the air shaft.

When I turned on my early morning light, the cockroaches scurried for cover, but that didn't bother me too much. Shower was a nice touch to start & end a day roaming Hong Kong environs. (close)

Simply, a FIT traveler exercises complete freedom & takes full responsibility for planning, design & execution of their foreign travel experiences including their choice of sites & activities and all the required logistics (transportation, itinerary, lodging, food, etc..

Free (solo) Independent Travel
Factors

1. FIT travel anxiety:

I suggest that all travelers, both domestic and foreign, suffer ‘travel anxiety’ to some degree because they leave the comfortable, confident security of their home environment for a foreign culture; sometimes radically so. different roads, laws, foods, etc.

Independent solo travelers may be prey to even more ‘travel anxiety’ because they are ‘solo & independent ' in a foreign culture which varies radically from USA culture and more so, between other foreign countries.

Ironically, it is EXACTLY this anxious uncertainty that provides Independent solo travelers their unique, unexpected experiences, not only testing ourselves, but providing the rich & novel. Yet, always have a back door — an escape strategy.

I combat anxiety levels (fear) with exhaustive, pre-trip research & planning melded into my own Personal Guidebook-like itinerary. The more you know about a country’s culture the less ‘travel anxiety.’ I can almost guarantee.