Not too long ago, I had the privilege and honor of being invited to Kenya to film a segment for a documentary on female empowerment in the slums of Nairobi. My traveling companion and I only spent a few days there, visiting orphanages and schools and beautiful, vibrant young women who had pledged to send their children to university and by God would do it, one hand-sewn dress at a time. The slums of Nairobi cannot be characterized as pretty or attractive; they reek of garbage and feces, stray and rabid dogs run from rotting pile to rotting pile. Children play with garbage, and the water is far from drinkable. Within several hours of our departure from the hotel, as we wandered our way around the airport, looking for somewhere to grab a beer before our very long flight, the televisions showed that a fire had broken out in those very slums, killing over a hundred people. A man had tossed aside a cigarette, igniting a pool of sewage and oil, spillage from a nearby depot. Next to us in the airport, a man said to his companion, “Well, we’re never coming to this god-forsaken third-world country again.” It’s hard to avoid the feeling, simplistic though it may be, that we might have missed the beauty of the place—the traditional dance concert we saw, the children braiding my hair, some of the best vegetarian food I’ve ever had—if we’d been swayed by the third-worldness of Nairobi.
Whatever the terminology, "third-world", "developing nation", "low Human Development Index ranking", travel to a country with an abysmally low average income, equally low adult literacy rates, an unstable government and a lack of first-world comforts can be an intimidating and scary thing. What we miss when we dismiss them is the beautiful beaches of Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh, a trek through Nepal, the Great Zimbabwe Ruins, the stunning music of Burkina Faso, and the Kokoda Trail of Papua New Guinea. There are smart and safe ways to travel to these countries and embrace the cultures, natural environments, and people of these countries a little off the beaten path.
 Bangladesh, Nepal, Zimbabwe, Papua New Guinea. Be smart and understand the impact of your travel. When you begin to plan your travel, consider the fact that every dollar you spend in a country goes towards the local economy, or, in a lot of cases, the government. While in a lot of cases, this is a great thing, but in some countries it isn't. Visiting an impoverished nation can have an impact we don't even understand at first. Travel to some small African nations is fundamentally different than a weekend in the Hamptons or a week spent on a cruise ship. Tourism can provide jobs and incomes for communities that might otherwise have no mechanism for economic growth. It can promote gender equality and protection of the natural environment, from the jungles of the Amazon to the gorilla habitats of the Congo. When you’re identifying where you want to travel, look at countries that embrace pro-poor tourism (http://www.propoortourism.org.uk/)
Get the administrivia out of the way first. The basics. Your best bet is to start with the Department of State website and work your way out from there. Make sure your country doesn't have any significant travel warnings (I'm looking at you, North Korea). Make sure your passport won't expire in the next six months. If you need a visa, figure out what you need to do for that visa well ahead of time. The Pakistani and Indian embassies are notorious for making people wait, and you don't want to end up on an episode of Locked up Abroad for visa violation. Make photocopies of your passport. Figure out what kinds of outlets are used in your country of choice and buy converters, but don’t get tied to the idea of being able to use your electronics. Buy maps. Your 3G will not work. The Apple authorized retailer is a guy in a kiosk in a series of stalls. Get all of your shots ahead of time, and enough so that you have the time to do a typhoid regimen or multiple shots for HEP-ABC. Chances are the country you're traveling to doesn't have the kind of medical facilities you're used to in the Hollywood 'burbs, and it doesn't matter how many calls you make or how many people you know, when your appendix starts to go and you're in Malawi, Medevac is a dream that only happens in the movies. Be prepared. Call ahead to your Embassy, hire an expediter for the airport. There are few things more frustrating than trying to get a visa upon arrival in a language you haven't even heard of, let alone don't speak. And always let your Embassy know you're headed to that country. If the worst should happen and a tsunami hits or violence breaks out, your Embassy will want to do a head count and everything in their power to get you out. It's better to be overprepared than unprepared for the worst.
Hire a local tour guide. Unless you're fluent in the language and the culture of the country you're visiting, few things are more valuable than finding someone who does. Your Embassy can usually recommend someone to you, and the price tends to be so low that you're embarrassed by it. A local tour guide is invaluable in ways you can't even comprehend until you land in the country: recovery of lost/stolen luggage (it will get lost or stolen), haggling you down from the extra-special Westerner 400% mark-up on the clothing you’re trying to buy to replace your stolen/lost goods, finding you the best food, getting you invited to the best events, whether it’s a wedding/funeral in Haiti, a local fashion show in Bangladesh, or a music festival in Burkina Faso.
Do your research. Read the news. Find out if there are protests in Kathmandu and the Embassy is closed or if Ashura is happening in Dhaka, causing hundreds of thousands of devout Muslims to travel to this already overcrowded city. And it may sound obvious, but if there's a war going on, maybe you should wait until things calm down a little. Nobody wants to get caught in the crossfire of a fight with the Lord's Resistance Army in the jungles of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Understand the history of the country you’re traveling to. Former colonies have complicated relationships with their historical masters, and the remnants of colonialism remain in countries like India, Bangladesh, and African nations. This becomes increasingly important in understanding the way you might be viewed, particularly if you're from a country whose foreign policy has had a bearing upon their way of living. Read up on religious beliefs, no matter where you’re headed—to visit the Hindu temples in Bangladesh or to see the minarets in Jordan. Learn about the cultural differences, too. They can keep you out of bar fights. Did you know that in many Muslim cultures, eating with your left hand is considered unclean and your host may give you a strange look if you do it? In some Middle Eastern countries, a thumbs-up can mean the same as the middle finger. In Middle Eastern countries and in Thailand, it's offensive to show the sole of your foot to someone, so avoid crossing those legs and tilting your feet up. Figure out what it's respectful for you to wear: in Saudi Arabia, for instance, women, local and foreign, are required to wear an abaya, and while a headscarf isn't necessary, you should bring one along to avoid harassment from the local religious police. PDA is frowned on in a lot of places, so if you're considering heading to the sunny Middle East or Africa for your honeymoon, make sure you know ahead of time what the limits are. Most of all: be open, admit mistakes, and be willing to learn.
Go native and try the food (and everything else). Be smart: avoid buffets where food has been sitting in the open for too long, drink water from water bottles (and always inspect the cap to ensure that it hasn't been opened and simply resealed), and never drink anything that hasn't been opened in front of you. Avoid anything with ice for this reason. But when your Bangladeshi host leads a goat into the dining room, fresh and ready for that night's slaughter, it might occur to you to fake a food allergy, but you never know, that could be the best goat you’ve ever had. Friends who recently moved to India for work got sick from E. coli within a week of being there. They spent weeks bent over a toilet but say to this day, "Yeah, but that was one of the best meals I've ever had." It might be fried tarantulas in Cambodia, a Balut (a fertilized egg/chick fetus) from the Philippines, kopi luwak (coffee made from the excrement of the luwak) from Indonesia, or snake wine from Vietnam, all of which sound disgusting but that are the delicacies of thousands upon thousands of people for centuries. You can expect whatever you eat to be off the charts spicy, a texture you’ve never had before, or to be flavored with seasonings your Whole Foods has only dreamed about, but whatever it is, most meals will be an experience. Make sure you take the time to really experience them. And while you’re at it, avoid the big fancy Western hotel. You can stay in one of those anywhere. As Tony Bourdain said, "Do we really want to travel in hermetically sealed popemobiles through the rural provinces of France, Mexico and the Far East, eating only in Hard Rock Cafes and McDonalds? Or do we want to eat without fear, tearing into the local stew, the humble taqueria's mystery meat, the sincerely offered gift of a lightly grilled fish head? I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once."
Know when to draw the line at being cautious and just go for it. Take pictures but never let the camera stand between you and the experience you want to have; don’t get overwhelmed thinking about what caption you’re going to put on the pictures on your Facebook page. Say yes to things unless your spidey sense is telling you to avoid them (when it comes down to you and your safety, always trust your spidey sense). Ask questions and never be afraid to look like a stupid tourist, because you are one. Be respectful and kind. Apologize when you need to. Use the buddy system. Carry a phone, extra batteries, extra SIM cards, and the phone numbers of the Embassy and everyone else you can possibly think of. Haggle your Bangladeshi shopkeeper down a few hundred taka for a strand of pearls, but haggle for the experience—not the extra two dollars you’ve talked him out of. Buy local clothing, talk to local merchants. Do things you might never do at home, like letting someone do a Haitian voodoo ritual designed to you don’t even know what. Be mindful of your footprint. Understand that everyone you’re surrounded by is a person too, regardless of their situation. Have a good time. Make lots of memories, the same way you would during a trip to Vegas or Italy or the Seychelles. You may not have a blow dryer or jets in the showers or room service to bring you champagne and strawberries—you may not have alcohol at all, depending on the country—but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a life-changing trip.
John Steinbeck
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