The quick answer is this: Travel alone. Maybe your first stint is leaving your city bubble or state bubble, but your biggest challenge will be leaving to a foreign country with no native speakers from your home country.
After traveling solo you’ll expand your comfort zone romantically, physically, mentally and add to a growing list of friends to keep. At first a trip with “all inclusive features” sounds like the way to go, much like everything else, anything easy gives minimal long-term gains. By staying in uppity hotels and resorts or even in hostels with a slew of backpackers you place a bubble around your comfort zone. A buffer is put up and won’t be taken down. Instead, similar to learning a language, attempt total immersion.
Room: While hotels and resorts are great for a day or so when you’re getting raped by work or have a 3 day weekend to burn, try an apartment. You’ll face a steeper learning curve. You’ll be asked to make friends without the help of other foreigners just “in town”. You’ve taken off the training wheels.
Eating: Whether you live in China, the USA, Brasil or what have you, try to adjust quickly. Do they eat more seafood? Meat? What is cooked? Why? How? By attempting to force your tastes onto another environment you are hanging on to a way of life that is unrealistic. Much like a bar slut hanging onto the belief that she “really loved” all the men she has fucked silly. Irrational.
Activities: Some tourist attractions are great and also come with a cost, the belief that all of the attractions makes the city, foolish. Instead, after seeing the main drags, walk into hotels and ask for bars/clubs to attend. Then? Cross every single one off the list. Challenge yourself to see and experience the real environment. See how much you can adjust and be part of the culture. The faster you appear to live there, the better you’re doing.
Learn the Language: Shave off 30minutes to an hour a day. Invest this time in practicing the language. You don’t need to become a foreign translation worker, but you can show some respect. This helps in many ways. 1) Your brain gets worked, 2) You can hit on skinny foreigners (better looking), 3. You can bribe a cop if you get into a “situation”. Finally, if you believe you can’t learn a language past the age of 20… You’ve been lied to.
Conclusion: The real takeaway here is your entire comfort zone is being challenged. Your entire world changes. Your eating habits change. Your words change. Your friends change. The only thing you have to rely on is yourself. As Darwin says, “adapt or die”.
