5 Sure-Fire Tips To Help You Travel Like An Idiot

Want to travel but hate the inconvenience of dealing with other countries, their customs and language, their people and their stupid laws? This easy-to-use guide will insure you can be left alone while you travel the world exactly as you see fit.

I would never have discovered this wine!

TIP #1—Always eat and drink things you’re 100% familiar with. New foods, weird-o spices, unpronounceable ingredients? Nah, that’s a waste! Only order foods you’ve had a 1,000 times before so there’s no chance of accidentally trying anything new.

OR – When I was staying at Fairmont Montreux Palace in Switzerland I was having dinner and ordered the local duck, which came with local veggies and had a glass of wine from La Cote, a wine region near Geneva. The guy next to me, clearly an American, ordered a chicken Caesar Salad and a Heineken. Seriously, why would you prefer the mediocre to the regional food/wine/beer/coffee, etc. of the very place you’re visiting? It doesn’t mean you’ll always like it, but your palate needs new experiences too.

At the Great Wall: nǐ hǎo.

TIP #2—Never learn to greet anyone in his or her own language. Learn a few words in the country you’re visiting? Way too hard. Speak exclusively your language. That way you always understand, at least, yourself.

OR – Learn a basic greeting and how to say thank you. It opens doors, shows respect for other people and makes you cool. When I was walking the Great Wall in China I routinely said hello to people in Chinese – very simple – but very effective and if nothing else, people smiled at me and greeted me back, making my experience all the more rich.

Out of the way Moai

TIP #3—Only stick with the obvious tourist attractions. Getting off the beaten path is no doubt the surest way to get beaten up, right? Side trips are for sissies – stay with the crowds.

OR-While on Easter Island I certainly visited the main moai attractions, but I also had rented a car and seen nearly all the moai on the island because I sought them out, including several that were rarely visited, including this one near a small harbor, far from the center of town. Listed on the map? Nope.

The serene beauty of morning at Vina Vik

TIP #4—Immerse yourself in your iPhone, ear buds and laptop. There’s no need to ever look up from a travel app or unplug from your virtual world because you might miss something, right?

OR—Lose the electronics in favor of authentic experiences. On a visit to Vina Vik, a very cool boutique winery/hotel two hours south of Santiago Chile, I took a morning hike over trails on its 11,000 acres. As this pix suggests, I would not have been so captivated by the morning sun penetrating the fog if I was listening to music. Instead I heard the birds, saw the sunrise and watched the distant snow capped Andes open up before me.

Austria's pristine beauty

TIP #5 – Treat public places, parks and wildlife refuge areas like it’s your very own back yard - a place to dump everything you don’t want.

OR – Cultivate a respect for the natural world since that’s probably why you’re visiting a city or country in the first place. When I was in Austria, it was clear the people there have a profound respect for their natural surroundings, taking great pain to keep it clean. Since we humans are at the top of the food chain, it is our responsibility and obligation to treat the other animals on this planet with respect, including the natural world around us. The more you see yourself as a part of the world rather than the focus of it, your life will be much better, and so everyone else’s.

The Emperor Needs No Clothes - Who Is In Max’s Innsbruck Tomb?

By all accounts Maximillian I seemed to love life, and why not? He was the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire from 1508 until he died in 1515 (although he was never officially crowned by the Pope), so pretty much anything and everything was available to him. Before that he was archduke of Austria where he laid the groundwork for much of Europe as part of the Hapsburg dynasty. Like many of that generation, and up to our present narcissistic beliefs, it was crucial, and I mean crucial, to be remembered after death – to be loved and adored well into infinity. Therefore plans were underway a decade prior to Max’s demise for his memorial; an elaborate marble tomb flanked by dozens of life-size bronze statues in stunning detail that flank Max’s sepulcher.

Just one of the large bronze statues

I visited the Tomb and was impressed by the scope of the monument, but what illuminates the imagination is the near jaw dropping detail. A stately Renaissance-style grill on all four sides of the tomb is topped by the kneeling Maximilian and supported at the four corners by statues of the cardinal virtues. It’s important to remember that this was all done by hand, before computer generated images, 3D printing, or cheap Chinese labor. And this is what is so remarkable about the tomb – the immense handiwork and time it took to complete it. Max’s tomb is housed inside the Hofkirche or “court church,” in downtown Innsbruck, Austria. The church itself is rather unremarkable so this is really about Max and his elaborate tomb. The sides of the marble tomb have 24 hand-carved inlaid panels depicting various scenes from his life such as his wedding and battles carved by Alexandre Colin of Belgium. He died before it was completed so his son carried on with the work of finishing the tomb.

The stunning detail of the marble panels is exquisite

The website, The World of the Habsburgs, which chronicles the dynasty says this about the tomb: “The design represents a combination of classical tomb and medieval funerary cortege and is symptomatic of Maximilian’s concept of art, which sought to revive classical ideals while remaining bound to medieval traditions.” Hum. “The monument was intended to glorify the Habsburgs and legitimize their imperial status by referencing the Roman emperors and their tombs.” Well then, mission accomplished.

Max kneels atop his own tomb

But here is the twist - this elaborate tomb so dutifully created, planned and executed, this staggeringly intricate piece of art - well, Max isn’t buried here. Who is? Actually…no one. There are no bones of Max inside the tomb, or anywhere near it. His remains are in Vienna, not Innsbruck, 300 miles away. So all this work, craftsmanship, time, dedication and toil resulted in an empty coffin. But you can, and should, visit the Tomb of Maximilian for the sheer magnitude of artistry represented here if you are in Innsbruck. It is a reminder that much of what history leaves us is less about political dynasties and nation building, and more about artists who toil in virtual obscurity, leaving behind physical manifestations of their God-given abilities.