Expert Tips: Top Five on Travel From Explorer Benedict Allen

by Taryn Davies | 5 June 2012

Put Benedict's tips to use on your travels

Travel tips always come in useful, you learn things that will help you can the most from your experiences and see things that you quite possibly wouldn't have.

TV presenter, explorer and author Benedict Allen shares his top five travel tips with you:

1. Throw away the guide book: Not literally, but try to distance yourself from received knowledge and advice. If you’ve read up on your destination beforehand, you don’t need a guide book - otherwise you'll be forever following in someone else's footsteps.

2. Find a jungle: This could mean discovering the unique rainforests of Brunei or it could mean going somewhere you haven’t been before, trying something new and getting out of your comfort zone. In Brunei I remember feeling as if I was taking a bath in fantastic, exotic and alien life forms. I knew then I had travelled really very far in my mind from home.

3. Learn about the stars: So many times on my travels I've found myself looking up at beautiful clear skies - so unpolluted compared to most of ours. Some planets and stars will be familiar, and remind you of home and loved ones, other constellations will be new - or appear upside down!

4. Collect: It may seem obvious to take a diary to record events - but often on journeys we are too tired at the end of each day. Try keeping a used bus ticket, a restaurant card, a leaf - all these things harbour memories. Stuff them in your notebook as you go along.

5. The natives are friendly: What I've learnt in my 25 years’ experience as an adventurer is that, far from being aggressive or dangerous, nearly everyone is decent off the beaten track. Make an effort with the goat herder, the market women. This means taking time - slowing down to the local pace. I well remember in Brunei finding the local Iban "tribesmen" terrifying with their dragon tattoos, staring through the trees at me. But they welcomed me in when they saw I was actually interested in their lives, not just passing through. It turned out they were actually rather scared of me.