Kevin Kelly’s travel tips are based on 50 years of experience. Below are my favorite ones; the common theme is that they make it easier to engage with the locals and go beyond typical tourist experiences.
Organize your travel around passions instead of destinations. An itinerary based on obscure cheeses, or naval history, or dinosaur digs, or jazz joints will lead to far more adventures, and memorable times than a grand tour of famous places. It doesn’t even have to be your passions; it could be a friend’s, family member’s, or even one you’ve read about. The point is to get away from the expected into the unexpected.
The most significant criteria to use when selecting travel companions is: do they complain or not, even when complaints are justified? No complaining! Complaints are for the debriefing afterwards when travel is over.
Hiring a driver plus car for a multi-day trip is often a surprisingly appealing bargain—especially if you have 2 to 3 people to split the costs. The total could be less than taking trains and taxis, and you get door to door service, and often a built-in guide who knows the local roads and also local festivities and best places to eat. They will be at least 2x the cost of renting a car, but for some kinds of travel 2x as good. If you are a spontaneous traveler, a hired driver is by far the best option allowing you to change your itinerary immediately as mood, weather, or lucky timing dictate. I usually find drivers by searching travel forums for recommendations. I score candidates primarily by their communication skills.
For a truly memorable trip, go without reservations, just winging it along the way. If you like somewhere, stay a day longer, or if you don’t, split a day earlier. If the train is full, take a bus. That freedom can be liberating.
Your enjoyment of a trip will be inversely related to the weight of your luggage. Counterintuitively, the longer your trip, the less stuff you should haul. Travelers still happy on a 6-week trip will only have carry-on luggage. That maximizes your flexibility, enabling you to lug luggage up stairs when there is no elevator, or to share a tuk-tuk, to pack and unpack efficiently, and to not lose stuff. Furthermore, when you go light you intentionally reduce what you take in order to increase your experience of living. And the reality of today is that you can almost certainly buy whatever you are missing on the road.
Here are my thoughts on quite a different list by Kevin Kelly.
Nehaveigur 