I’m at Tengachaya train station in Osaka Japan, trying to get to the airport for a flight to Bangkok. An elderly man in double denim approaches me and asks where I’m from. My spider senses tingle a little. This is the first time anyone has just come up to me in Japan in past ten days. I scope him out as he touches my arm, and my hands go into my pockets where phone and wallet are. The man in denim with wispy white beard tells me he is Javanese, and was once a writer for Lonely Planet. I tell him I’m from Australia and he says the world has changed, and these days he just notices young people staring at their smart phones looking for answers. The Lonely Planet writers were the pioneers of travel. I remember when I started traveling 30 years ago, Lonely Planet was the bible. Now its a very good online resource and app.Today it is a different world, where your success may depend on the strength of your WiFi, or Wihi as they say it in Japan. I am a self-confessed travel nerd! I love pouring over blogs, YouTube whatever gets me the info to make my adventure easy (depends on your definition) and enjoyable.
People you’ve got to do some work for your holiday!
Yes. We all have busy lives and my motto is never judge. If you want to hand your dream holiday to an experienced professional who will do an amazing job at connecting you with the travel companies that pay their commission. Go for it!
I reckon you will have a great holiday. But. Never let a but go by, my English Literature teacher told me many years ago.
If you want to step outside the guided track and find adventure, then research the life out of places you want to go to. When you discover something by accident, because you took a detour, its unique and amazing. You experience your own adventure!
OK, within reason, I’m not recommending dark alleys. But I am recommending meet locals, like a great tour app I discovered recently visiting Bangkok.
OK. Lets back the truck up a little. I asked a journalist friend recently who worked in a previous life, before kids, for Lonely Planet, What I should do in Bangkok, and she recommended visiting a local floating market. I did not want to share the experience with a horde of other tourists, and I was a bit hesitant to go up to a long tail boat driver on the river and say “please take me down a canal and rob me” so I searched the internet and found via Google, With locals. website. Blog of this adventure coming soon.
But. The point is, I had a unique experience, with my own personnel guide, where I was not herded by a person with a flag. And, it ended when I wanted it to.
What I’m saying here is the world has changed. The travel writers, before the internet, took the journey for you, and wrote beautiful stories in a book which you put in your backpack. I’m 50 now. I don’t want to carry much! WiFi hot spot, cash and my phone.
Take the journey, research, use whatever you can to plan your holiday.
Your hard-earned cash will be well spent when you discover the real and local adventures.
Ok. Back to Tengachaya station.My wife and I climb the stairs with our suitcases and carefully check the google maps. We need the Nankai line on platform 3 to get to Kansai International. We’ve bought our tickets, 1000 yen all the way to the airport. In the past ten days we’ve discovered the joy of first class Shinkansen travel, we bought Japan Rail passes. We are very suited to first class travel now. The JR passes have expired. But we think, nah the google maps told us the fare was 1000 yen! We board a fancy blue sleek train, take our seats, and as we are high fiving each other thinking, We’ve nailed it again! A very polite and smiley Japanese train conductor asks to see our tickets, and then says please follow her. I’m thinking, we must have got in the wrong car. There are better seats! No. The smile now gone from her face, she leads us to the nearest door and tells us we have to get off at the next stop. There is another train for the people who paid 1000 yen. This train is 1600 Yen and the seats are all booked. I apologize with a phrase I’ve learned from my Japanese language app. We stand now for about 30 minutes, and the smiley Japanese conductor comes back at the next stop to show us the door! Japan is amazing, and beautiful. Plan, but be prepared to make a few mistakes.
Enjoy the #festivaloflife
#festivaloflife 
Love it! Very insightful look at travelling in a digital age
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Thankyou Arielle!
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