My One Tip to Travellers

written on July 21st, 2015 by Rafia Abubakar

 

When you travel, you can be assured of meeting lots of people and am not just talking about the ones you see when you arrive at your destination. Whether it be a short road trip, a long haul flight crossing borders, a trip you’ve been looking forward to all year or a spontaneous no bags journey, I have one travel tip for you…

SMILE.

I am not the jolliest person in a crowd. My social skills leave much to be desired especially when meeting new acquaintances. My friends will tell you that I am most happy not talking or interacting when it is not needed. But I will not hesitate to smile at people when traveling. Why? Because like everyone else, I don’t want a hard time on the road. Though I have my wanderlust and love going on trips to new places, I know from other people’s horror stories, that traveling has its down and dark side, but that’s life, so better to go prepared. This tip has not won me free stuff or given me VIP treatment, but it has not failed me where good vibes are concerned, and I have quite a number of traveling done: local, international, bus, boats and planes.

Remember all those people I mentioned you will meet? Like first and foremost the people you meet at the terminal: You, the traveler, may be excited at the idea of a nice vacation, but the people in the terminal are there most of their days working to make it happen. We sometimes get annoyed with all the lines we have to take, but they have to face every irate passenger every day. Not a pretty picture if you think about the other side of the travel scene.

Then there are your fellow passengers. We don’t know everyone’s story. Why are they traveling? Where are they going? Are they happy with the trip or anxious? It’s easy to get carried away with all the travel trends and to assume everyone is vagabonding to an off beaten country for an instagramworthy adventure. So why not boost someone else’s day, pay forward the good vibe, smile. We all get grumpy when nothing is going fast enough or something turns up, but a smile can be contagious. When the good vibe spreads there’s more to smile about.

Then again, there will always be those who will be rude no matter what; a snobby steward, a humourless attendant, an obnoxious fellow passenger. Sometimes a smile will be good for your own sake.