This post was mentioned on Twitter by vagabondish: Smarten Up! Perfect Your Travels By Becoming an Expert http://retwt.me/Iant #travel…

I also highly recommend some great books for packing along while traveling (compact & light, soft covered, and extremely fascinating from many angles) – Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World and Salt: A world History, both by Mark Kurlansky. I learned all sorts of interesting things in these books that were missing from my formal history and social science education.

I agree with the other commenters, food is a very important travel component, perhaps the most important. Even if one never steps foot in a historic building or museum and spends the entire time on a island beach (not my idea of travel, but different strokes), one needs to eat no matter what.

Our family always travels on our stomachs, seeking out the local food, not the tourist food. We often plan our activities around the meals. I do the most research on finding good food, then the other sights and activities.

I learned this the hard way. When I was 18 I participated in a short “exchange” program, staying with a family in Spain, spending time in Madrid, Leon, & near Malaga. I barely sampled the wide variety of foods, because I thought I detested olives, gazpacho, whole fish prepared without deboning, etc. I stuck to potato omelets, churros and chocolate for the most part. I was so unadventurous and missed a big opportunity to grow up!

Now I love those foods I thought I hated and know a lot more about a) how limited and unhealthy many modern and typically processed American foods are compared to traditional cuisines from ancient cultures and b) one can learn a lot about a culture’s history from their old-fashioned “comfort” foods. I now go out of my way to try foods way outside of my comfort zone and have learned there is a lot I can “stomach”.

There’s a practical aspect to this as well. It’s much easier and often cheaper to eat “local” while traveling, instead of searching for familiar “safe” foods, which may be easy to find, but sometimes are not. I actually find my system “tolerates” food differences better if I am more adventuresome, as I have exposed myself to more cultures (literally, a wide variety of bacteria cultures), and that makes for a healthier gut bacteria population than always eating sterile, dead American food. Probiotics smooth over any rough patches. Eating locally is also a great way to meet locals. Sticking to tourist food means more time hanging with the people from back home.

@ Brian, I completely agree, and in fact my original outline for this article included a section on Cuisine, I just ran out of space and decided it wasn’t quite up there with history and art. But you make a good point, especially about knowing the local crops (and other elements of their economy would be good too). Oh, and knowing how to say delicious. Very important!