Finding offbeat things to do?

I started my round the world trip. It's fun but I'm quickly getting bored of sightseeing, travel guide stuff. Are there any offbeat travel guides? For example I saw a thread somewhere about Tokyo saying suggesting a pub where a monkey serves you beer, or another post saying how there was a show where a woman slices a banana with her vagina. Stuff like that. How do I find unique things like this to do?

Hey virtuewill,

Where in the world are you at the moment and how long have you been on the road? Are your travel plans and itinerary set in stone or are you pretty flexible in where you go?

The reason I ask is because I sort of know where you're coming from. Last year I spent 2 months backpacking through India and Sri Lanka. The first couple weeks were great but after a while I was getting "templed out"...how many amazing temples can you really appreciate? It sort of loses it's spark. We then began to couchsurf (a great way to get more deeply connected to locals outside tourist zones--highly recommend it)! We also started realizing we didn't have to "do" anything or "see" anything (like landmarks, temples, etc.) We just had to be there and really experience the places and people. If you're somewhere familiar (like Europe for North Americans or Australians) where things just aren't quite as exciting, try going somewhere new and totally foreign. Two places I always recommend are Benin and Vanuatu. Benin: totally not on the typical tourist radar and certainly will give you unpredicted experiences (being chased by hippos in a leaky canoe with no motor, participating in Voodoo ceremonies with dancing haystacks, smoking black mambas out of your kitchen, etc) Vanuatu: off the main island you can find some pretty authentic and amazing experiences as well (without even trying) like getting stranded on coral in the middle of the ocean because nobody warned you about the tides, drinking kava with the village chief on National Chief's Day, or going out with your hotel owner to catch your seafood dinner. I guess my point is it's not so much what you see, but more what you do and what you experience. Basically I think the further you get off the "tourist trail" the more likely you'll find the crazy experiences you're looking for all on your own--no guidebook or directions needed.

Just my two cents!

Ben2Africa wrote:Hey virtuewill,

Where in the world are you at the moment and how long have you been on the road? Are your travel plans and itinerary set in stone or are you pretty flexible in where you go?

The reason I ask is because I sort of know where you're coming from. Last year I spent 2 months backpacking through India and Sri Lanka. The first couple weeks were great but after a while I was getting "templed out"...how many amazing temples can you really appreciate? It sort of loses it's spark. We then began to couchsurf (a great way to get more deeply connected to locals outside tourist zones--highly recommend it)! We also started realizing we didn't have to "do" anything or "see" anything (like landmarks, temples, etc.) We just had to be there and really experience the places and people. If you're somewhere familiar (like Europe for North Americans or Australians) where things just aren't quite as exciting, try going somewhere new and totally foreign. Two places I always recommend are Benin and Vanuatu. Benin: totally not on the typical tourist radar and certainly will give you unpredicted experiences (being chased by hippos in a leaky canoe with no motor, participating in Voodoo ceremonies with dancing haystacks, smoking black mambas out of your kitchen, etc) Vanuatu: off the main island you can find some pretty authentic and amazing experiences as well (without even trying) like getting stranded on coral in the middle of the ocean because nobody warned you about the tides, drinking kava with the village chief on National Chief's Day, or going out with your hotel owner to catch your seafood dinner. I guess my point is it's not so much what you see, but more what you do and what you experience. Basically I think the further you get off the "tourist trail" the more likely you'll find the crazy experiences you're looking for all on your own--no guidebook or directions needed.

Just my two cents!

I think you understand my feelings exactly Ben. I've been on the road for 2 weeks now. First went to New Zealand to go hiking/camping, and now I'm in Australia at a surf camp. I realized visiting the major cities and beaches will get really old soon. Beaches are beaches and buildings are buildings. I want to go to SE Asia in a few days but have no clue where to start or what to do.

I agree with couchsurfing, I definitely want to do it to get more in touch with the locals. I only wish that there was a general way I could post that I'm in the area, and have hosts contact me if interested. I don't like asking each person individually.

By the way, besides the surfing, the most adventurous thing that happened so far in Australia was me getting thoroughly searched by customs in Sydney. The woman doing it was awesome to talk to though and kind of cute, so I didn't mind.

Ben2Africa wrote:I want to go to SE Asia in a few days but have no clue where to start or what to do.

I'd say that's perfect! The less you have planned the more spontaneous and therefore adventurous your trip should be. If you want a good guidebook I'd recommend "Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide To The Art Of Long-Term World Travel" by Rolf Potts. He gives tons of great advice and puts travelling long term into perspective. Great tips on how to stay flexible and realize you are completely free at any given moment to go ANYWHERE and do ANYTHING. You're free Virtuewill! I'm jealous...I'm sitting here in my cubicle...counting down the days...50 more to go.

Anyways, S.E.A. is probably a great move for you. I've never been so can't really give any recommendations. If you don't have anything booked yet you should really consider Vanuatu before you leave Oz! Roundtrip ticket might be around 400 or 500 but it is so worth it! Maybe not recommended if you are already feeling "beached out" but it's the country I most want to go back to out of the 24 I've been to so far.

No matter where you go, that's where you are. Enjoy it and go get lost!

Get a 60 day visa for Indonesia and do NOT go to Bali. Take it for there.

My tip is very simple: dump your travel guide, buy a map of the country you are in, look at it and decide where you want to go. Then go there. Traveling is about what you want and not what other people tell you you have to want. Also, get your own vehicle - either a scooter or a bicycle. This will give your trip an individual character and you'll spend plenty of time where you don't have the feeling that you 'should go see this and do that'.

Well I'm not really sure how to advise you on this, as we just sort of fell into some of our stuff. Sometimes a hostel or campground would keep a file of interesting local things to do, which is how we got diverted from Rome to the Tarot Gardens for the day and we were really glad we went, as it was fascinating. We tried to break it up so we weren't really doing too much of one thing, though hiking was generally on the agenda every day in Oz and NZ. We made a point of finding good swimming holes too, since we were there in box jellyfish season and the water holes were better for swimming anyway and didn't attract the same crowd as the beaches. We also talked to people and surfed the net for interesting ideas. We spent a week at a platypus viewing camp in Queensland, via wwoof, and the camp reminded me of something out of Swiss Family Robinson. We petted tigers at a monastery in Thailand and took the Death Railway train ride one day while there also. Went to a temple one day and rented bicycles b/c it was so spread out and that made for a lovely day. Elephant rides. We went to Phetburi and roamed around the temples and fought off the monkeys who tried to attack us for our food till we got smart and put it away. I guess if you think in terms of mixing it up so it doesn't all run together in your mind and try to vary between being in the outdoors and doing city things, you shouldn't get too bored. And as someone mentioned--try to meet the people and get invited to parties.

virtuewill wrote:I only wish that there was a general way I could post that I'm in the area, and have hosts contact me if interested. I don't like asking each person individually.

My understanding of and experience with couchsurfing is that you should be prepared to at least make the effort to find somewhere to stay and not expect the world to come to you. I would suggest that if you cannot be bothered finding out about a host, you are unikely to pick up a teatowel after dinner and will probably NOT be the kind of surfer most people want to have around - just a gentle word of warning. CS is not just about a free bed.

My biggest experiences with bananas were the free ones we received each day in Laos at our guesthouse and the more-than-one-hundred we were gifted by various people on a walk we took in Yangmei one evening. But then we weren't looking for anything gimmicky or weird.

virtuewill wrote:I've been on the road for 2 weeks now. First went to New Zealand to go hiking/camping, and now I'm in Australia at a surf camp. [...] I want to go to SE Asia in a few days but have no clue where to start or what to do.

I might suggest that step one in finding offbeat things to do is to slow down. You're looking at heading on to your third country in three weeks, and the countries you've been to so far aren't exactly small. They could easily have filled more than a month each. Some people spend a year in Australia and don't see everything.

If you want to find things that aren't in your guidebook, you need to put yourself in a position where you'll be open to unexpected opportunities. Certainly Adrian's suggestion buying a bike and seeing Indonesia from the saddle is going to give you lots of opportunity to run into the random and unexpected. But even without going to that extreme, just spending a week or two in one area - couchsurfing or staying somewhere in town, not a self-supporting accomodation where you eat, sleep, and spend your day in the same place - will give the opportunity to just wander and see what there is to see.

SEA may well be a better place to slow down. It's more foreign - the number of things that are strange and interesting will be much higher - and the daily cost of doing nothing is so much lower than in Oz/NZ. But there's no doubt that if you poked around Australia, you'd find lots to interest you as well. It's just a matter of laying the guidebook aside and finding your own fun.

I too am tired of that kind of travel. Because I don't like to pilot motorvehicles and don't have the muscles or stamina of a race horse, I walk a lot and use public transport, sometimes hitch rides. One of the most interesting experiences in my trip to Romania was hitching a ride on a horse drawn gypsy hay wagon.

But you do need to leave the Lonely planet comfort zone, for sure, and be ready to accept some serious dangers in the search to leave the tourist reservation. Some of my best experiences have been of this kind. I do NOT recommend, however, that you get lost in the South American jungles of Venezuela without a guide, and hack your way to a river so you can be rescued by natives. Its probably a really bad idea only good for danger addicts. I met a few of those, and they sure were proud they proved themselves in that way. Thing is, a NATIVE probably wouldn't want to do what they did, since they typically live in villages!!!

Thats the odd thing. I just found out that one of the french explorers of the Congo went places that other natives hadn't gone, because they were scared of breaking the taboo of going too far up or down the river!!!

So with that in mind, break the taboo of only doing what is suggested in the Lonely Planet and other guidebooks, and follow your own muse. In doing so, however, please be aware that sometimes things aren't done just because they're so darned dangerous, and carry so little reward

\Ex: sitting in a malaria mosquito ridden jungle camp for 3 weeks hoping that this time, the mosquito that bit you won't give you one of a dozen brands of tropical mosquitos, just for the bragging rights.
Its really boring, unless you like meditating, and not as rewarding as say, meeting the natives in some friendly manner!!!

Ex 2: climbing volcanoes that are known to be robber ridden, or say, doing the Darien Gap without a guide, a gun, or a clue how to navigate in the jungle.

Personally, I've gotten older and would rather not get hurt in a serious way unless the experience is worth it. So now I have run off to volunteer for a few months in nicaragua, where I will be working with nicaraguans in a cooperative manner, and staying in one place.

I've found that working in a place means you usually don't see as much as when you're travellking, but your experience has a more personal depth to it that is irreplaceable.

Tortuga_traveller wrote:But you do need to leave the Lonely planet comfort zone, for sure, and be ready to accept some serious dangers in the search to leave the tourist reservation. Some of my best experiences have been of this kind. I do NOT recommend, however, that you get lost in the South American jungles of Venezuela without a guide, and hack your way to a river so you can be rescued by natives. Its probably a really bad idea only good for danger addicts. I met a few of those, and they sure were proud they proved themselves in that way. Thing is, a NATIVE probably wouldn't want to do what they did, since they typically live in villages!!!

I might add though that there are certain places in the world that get really burnt out on rescuing hapless adventure travelers who go in with the attitude of "Oh well, if I get in trouble someone will rescue me," but they forget that this rescue can cost the govt of that country millions of $ and some of those countries are starting to charge the travelers the rescue fee. I know that New Zealand was considering doing that 5 years ago when we were there and I'm betting that they do now.

Another fun thing to do is to seek out the hot springs of various countries. We did that in New Zealand and it was cold and cloudy that day with little snowflakes falling on our heads while we were luxuriously warm in the baths.