Live like a tourist

I came across this wonderful blog and a post title got me thinking. Why don’t I live my life like I do when I travel?

Chillin’ with JD in Hong Kong

When I travel ~

• I talk to strangers
• I try different food
• I take different routes to see what else I can see and photograph
• I plan to see different sites or places every few days
• I go snorkelling, hiking, bike riding etc…
• I enjoy different weather, unusual customs and chaotic traffic

Waterfalls in Vanuatu

Or is it a catch-22? Maybe that’s why I go on holiday. To do the things I don’t do at home. To experience something different. But then again, I love holidays and live for those weeks and months away from the usual daily routine to experience different things and meet different people.

This is an experiment I’m putting on hold for a few months, ironically because we’ll actually be on holiday through March/April, but when I get home, I might try the following and see whether I can partly live my life like a tourist:

Eating crickets in Thailand

• I live in a city with hundreds of thousands of people and barely know anyone. Each week I’m going to attempt to strike up a conversation with a stranger. It won’t be some deep and meaningful heartfelt “on the way to best friends” type of chat, but something a little more advanced than ‘Hi, how’s it going?’
• I drive the same way to work every day. At least once a week, I’m going to take a different route. Seeing as there’s only two direct routes to my workplace, these detours will likely be just a street or two different, but that could be enough to see something I haven’t seen before.
• The next time Sel and I eat out, we’ll make a point of going somewhere we haven’t been yet and ideally a type of food we haven’t tried.
• One weekend I’m going to walk drive/walk around my hometown Newcastle as a tourist. See the sights and try to imagine what it’s like to view it all for the first time.

Bike riding in Burma

It’s an interesting thing to think about and I’ll let you know how the experiment turns out. I love my holidays and I love the experience that comes with visiting somewhere new, somewhere miles and miles away from home. But at the end of the day, those things simply make me happy. And why shouldn’t I try to replicate some of those things at home if it means doing things I enjoy?

What things could you try at home if you were going to ‘live life as a tourist’?