{"id":138,"date":"2013-12-01T19:00:24","date_gmt":"2013-12-01T19:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/majormischief.com\/?p=138"},"modified":"2013-11-24T18:31:05","modified_gmt":"2013-11-24T18:31:05","slug":"keys-to-travel-happiness-a-series-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/majormischief.com\/?p=138","title":{"rendered":"Keys to Travel Happiness (a series)"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Number Two: <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Talk to strangers<\/span><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">.<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>We\u2019re not suggesting you walk up to random people on the street (although we don\u2019t judge, so if that\u2019s your thing\u2026) Have dinner at the bar or lunch at a communal table. Sit near the crowd at the beach. Then find a way to get the conversation going.<\/p>\n<p>Most people, especially seasoned travelers, are eager to share their stories so it isn&#8217;t hard. Notice something about the person sitting next to you; ask what they\u2019re eating; complement their choice of Hawaiian shirt\u2026 If that\u2019s too challenging for you introverts in the crowd then help others along by giving them a reason to strike up the conversation with you \u2013 a book (you remember those), a hat, an unusual drink order.<\/p>\n<p>For us the conversation starter is often Hillary\u2019s shoes \u2013 typically outlandish and completely inappropriate for the significant amount of walking undertaken each day. But in Argentina it was Mark\u2019s silver bracelet \u2013 purchased in a small town in Indonesia. He always wears it as a reminder that it\u2019s important to experience a bit of the world every day.<\/p>\n<p>At a little winery in Mendoza, Argentina the guitar-turned-wine-guy tasting room shopkeeper had on a similar bracelet. It turns out it was also purchased in the same small Indonesian town. Yes, it is a VERY small world. Quite a few hours and glasses of wine later we had compared travel stories, discussed the merits of several guitar makers (he\u2019s still playing and recording) and learned he has family in Napa, California. Moreover he told us about some hidden travel treasures around Mendoza which we sought out the following day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Number Two: Talk to strangers. We\u2019re not suggesting you walk up to random people on the street (although we don\u2019t judge, so if that\u2019s your thing\u2026) Have dinner at the bar or lunch at a communal table. Sit near the crowd at the beach. Then find a way to get the conversation going. Most people, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[36,38,4,37,18,7],"class_list":["post-138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wanderlust","tag-argentina","tag-conversation","tag-international-travel","tag-small-world","tag-tips","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/majormischief.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/majormischief.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/majormischief.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/majormischief.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/majormischief.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=138"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/majormischief.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141,"href":"https:\/\/majormischief.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions\/141"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/majormischief.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/majormischief.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/majormischief.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/majormischief.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}