Five Essential Characteristics Travellers Should Have to Enjoy Travels. What Personality Traits Would Your Friends Ascribe to You!

five essential characteristics: How is it possible that the same destination can feel like a paradise for one, while the other person will describe it as the worst holiday ever? It is all about the perspective.. and the personality. I have met so many people who recklessly tried to pursue the backpacking lifestyle and suffered from the aftermath, once they laid their feet on foreign soil. They simply didn’t meet the true adventurer‘s soul requirements.

Here are some essential features and personality traits which every traveller should posses:

Essential Characteristics: Open-mindedness

This magical round thing called the Earth has so much to offer. People walking on its surface have many different colors, speak different languages and follow various habits and cultures.

It would be a shame to think that the culture you are bringing within you is the only one which is correct. Instead of judging and being distrustful, try to open your eyes and heart. What is different does not equal wrong.

That someone you were initially afraid to sit next might turn out to be your best friend and the food you judged by appearance might send your taste buds like no other dish you have tried before. Knowing different cultures is gold, it is the richness no one can ever take away from you.

Also, be open to adventures. Those are the stories you will find yourself bragging about for years from now.

Five Essential Characteristics: Independence

Independence is the one of the most important things on the list of characteristics of every traveller. Either you already are independent enough, or you will soon learn to be. Because sometimes it’s either take action or die and there is not always someone to book tickets for you, find a haven for the night for you or make up a travel plan for the day for you.

It all starts with having guts to make the first step and what follows is an inevitable process of changing your soul from something you considered independent before, into skilled and seasoned traveller who is not afraid to use body and sign language when buying lunch from one of the street food stalls or bargaining on the markets without any knowledge of the local language whatsoever.

Five essential characteristics: Know how to be alone

Even though traveling solo doesn’t necessarily mean to travel alone.. More like the exact opposite in actual fact. Fellow travellers are always happy to fall into a deep conversation about everything and nothing on the long bus ride or to take up a new group member on their adventurous day trip.

But sometimes, there is a day when the circumstances are just not right enough or your travel buddy decides to go to a party you simply don’t feel like joining and you end up sitting on the terrace alone, with a cup of tea in one hand and your travel journal in the other. And it actually feels good to be alone for a while. It truly should. This is the time for yourself when you can do everything you were postponing and neglecting before, all while partying and discussing all your fresh experience with hostel mates and trying to be at all the places at once.

Take your journal and put down some future memories, read your favourite book, listen to some music of your own choice and indulge in the bit of alone-time. The inner peace with yourself helps you grow.

Five essential characteristics: Flexibility

The ferry doesn’t leave the shore today? Your flight was cancelled? The hostel is fully booked? No matter how well you plan your trip, there is always the tricky aspect called destiny – and especially with travelling, there is always something which will go wrong. Inevitably. If it’s not supposed to happen, it will not and there is simply nothing you can do about it.

But that should definitely not be the reason to call off the purpose of having a great time. They say, hope for the best, but expect the worst. If plan “A“ doesn’t work, there is dozen of other letters in the alphabet to make it an amazing day eventually.

Maybe the alternative trip to the nearby beach will end up being the best idea ever. Maybe the forced cheap hostel overnight stay in the forsaken village will turn out to be one of the best nights you have ever had, with barbecue and endless laughs. Maybe you were meant to miss the flight so you could spend one more day at given destination and find the hidden market place. You never know!

Therefore it’s pointless to rave about something you cannot change and throw in the towel when there are plenty of other options how to make the best out of the worst.

Five Essential characteristics Passion

Last but not least – passion, the most important of them all. It is not a skill and it can hardly be learnt. Yet it is a vital personality trait for everyone tirelessly trying to discover the unknown which the world offers around its corners. Passion is what pushes you forward, what makes you wake up at 5 in the morning when the pitch dark surrounds just to watch the sunrise on the beach.

Passion is what allows you to crush your limits and hike up the mountain summit at the brink of exhaustion to spot the best view of your life. Passion is what makes your heart skip a beat with every new experience gained.

It is the fuel which puts you on the way at first place and it is the reason why you will never be actually able to stop.

What is the essential skill or characteristic you consider important for travellers?

Written By Veronika Tomeckova