It’s human nature to categorize and judge every experience as “this is X,” and “this is Y.” “This is how you do that,” and “That is how you do this.” By categorizing things this way is how we can get through life easier, how you can drive a stick shift, without thinking every single time “push in clutch. Change gear. Ease off clutch. Press the accelerator.” This way of thinking works against you when you travel! Throw all of the this’s and that’s out of the window.

Look at it like this: Have you ever paid attention to the way a child reacts to the most mundane things?? The way a baby is intrigued by examining their own foot, or the way a toddler is fascinated by a balloon? Why… Because it’s new. Because it’s something they’ve never experienced or noticed before. My best piece of advice is to be like that! Treat every day, every experience, every person like it’s the first time you’ve experienced it. Because it IS! You’ve never been in an Italian train station. You’ve never driven on the left hand side of the road. You’ve never eaten a meat pie? Do you like meat?… Do you like pie?… Then who knows, you might like meat pie.. After all, what have you got to lose? Answer is: Nothing.

Even beyond your own personal enrichment by being open to this country’s way of doing things, also realize that you are a guest in these places you are going. You’re being invited into someone else’s house! Imagine if someone walked into your house, and expected you to do everything like they do, and how they liked to do it? This tip goes for your destination’s customs, food, drink… For everything! You are in someone else’s house. You are there to experience their country, their ways of doing things, their cuisine. Of all of the inherent blessings of travel, this is one of the most life changing ones!

Just because you’ve always have had ice cubes in your cola, doesn’t mean that everyone does? Maybe you didn’t realize that ice cubes might water down your soda, or that you don’t mind espresso instead of a ‘Cafe’ Americano”? You are here to experience this country. If you wanted to eat cheeseburgers and drink ice cold beer (don’t get me wrong… I love those things too) while viewing the wonders of the ancient world, it would have been easier to have gone through a burger drive-thru, got a value meal, went home and sat down on your couch and turned on the cable TV.

To quote Tony Bourdain’s Grandma Rule: “You may not like Grandma’s Thanksgiving turkey. It may be overcooked and dry – and her stuffing salty and studded with rubbery pellets of giblets you find unpalatable in the extreme. You may not even like turkey at all. But it is ‘Grandma’s Turkey’. And you are in Grandma’s house. So shut the f%# up and eat it. And afterwards say, “Thank you, Grandma, why, yes, yes of course I’d love seconds.”