Exploring a new country can be scary and a challenging experience but it sure is beautiful, with eveyone around you is speaking a different language and an unknown scenery can leave you feeling lost. This post will give you tips and advice on how to explore and navigate a new country with confidence.
OBserve your Surroudings
Often when in a foregin country you are going ot find youreself in situations where you can’t fully read the script becasue you don’t understand the language. In theses situations you have to rely heavily on other forms of understanding your surroundings within the foreign city. For example if you don’t know the proper ettiquette for ordering a coffee or maybe a beer at the bar. Just stand back, observe and listen what the ohers around you are doing and how they do it and try yourself. Its always a good idea to do a bit of resarch before hand to get a clearer idea on a couple pharses on what to say when ordering at a restaurant, takig public transport etc in a foregin language.
Use google translate
There is definetly without a doubt you will run into language barriers while traveling to new countries but don’t panic. Whenever you find yourself trying to order a drink at the bar or read signs at the metro, Google Translate is one of the most helpful apps you can use while abroad. it gives a lot of really helpful and easy to use features to help you quickly translate foreign words. One of the best features is that you cna take a photo of anything with a foregin language and in seconds everything wll be translated for you. you can even use the microphone feature which allows you to speak into the microphone and it will detect the spoken language and automatically translate everything being said in a chosen language and vice versa. Which means you can even have back n fourth conversation with the locals.
There is even small portable translation devices you can buy that you speak into and it speaks back to you with translations which can really make conversating so much easier even when you don’t know a single word in that language.
Use google Maps
It’s so easy to get lost in a foregin country which is not exactly the worst thing because you are exploring and seeing things you never seen before, but its always a good idea to have a rough estimation where you are and where to go. Google maps is a great app to use when you are feeling like your lost and don’t know you’re way back, when you need to go somewhere where you and don’t know how to get there or even to have a look around what shops/veunes that are in the area. Google maps will give you the quickest routes to your destination and will show you everything that is around you on the map.
LEARN key words in foreign laguage
Learning a few key words is great because it can go a long way with helping you understand some things someone is saying to you, while trying to order something or reading signs in foregin languages. You don’t have to take a full language course or watch millions of vidoes, you can easily find a quick 10 minute youtube video which will tell you eveything you need to know, how to say it and what it means kind of like a quick crash course or even just some internet research of the most common words in a said language. Its good to learn some key words for things such as how to greet and thank people, ordering in restaurants, asking for dierctions, buying bus tickets, ordering a taxi etc. You don’t realise how much this would help you until you find yourself in a situaton where there is a language barrier.
Buy a Good sim card
As most international calls, texts or data usage can be a bit pricey, buying a new good sim card in a different country can go a long way for helping you save money. First of all you need to make sure ur phone is not sim locked, a good way to check this try your friends or familys sim card (differnt company from yours) and if it works your phone is unlocked to any sim and if it doesn’t then it is sim locked. Any phone repair store can ussually check this for you and also unlock it if it’s sim locked.
Sim cards abroad are ussually cheap as chips with great call,text and data plans, but make sure to do a bit of research to get the best value for your money.
Thank you for reading hopefully after this post you will have more knowledge on how to navigate in foregin countries and will have an easier time exploring to your fullest ptential.
