One of the most import­ant traits one can have as a trav­el­ler is endur­ance. After all we spend a con­sid­er­able amount of our trav­el­ling life wait­ing. We wait for a bus, that was sup­posed to have picked us up three hours ago; we wait at air­ports to catch our flight out; we wait in a queue at some embassy to apply for a visa and then again to pick it up; we wait at res­taur­ants for our food to arrive; we wait for our next trip to start; we wait at bor­der cross­ings for a bor­der guard to stamp our pass­port; we wait and pray for day­light to arrive, cause we, once again, chose the cheapest gues­t­house, which is full of bugs and mos­qui­tos and lacks a basic mos­quito net; we wait at cus­toms while our back­pack is being inspec­ted; we wait…The list goes on and on.

We also need to have endur­ance for a lot of other situ­ations, like when talk­ing to the loc­als, when you don’t share a com­mon lan­guage or when you’ve been walk­ing with your back­pack for what seems like days and still there is not a single bus/taxi/guesthouse in sight.

Now, if you’re a bit short on patience then you might be hav­ing a hard time. But fear not, here’s a 5 point train­ing plan, suited to turn even the most impa­tient trav­el­ler into an endur­ing machine:

1. The Bus Exercise

   Go to your local bus stop and sit there for a whole day. Res­ist the tempta­tion to just pop home for a sand­wich or your favor­ite tv show. Take some nuts, for your hun­ger, and a bottle of water, for your thirst, a deck of cards or a chess board with you and try not to get bored. Talk to your fel­low trav­el­lers and get them to play a few games with you.

2. The Nav­ig­a­tion Exercise

   Stuff your back­pack full with clothes, dirty ones will do just fine, pick an address at the other end of town and walk there. Do not have a look at a map before­hand, just ask the ‘loc­als’ for dir­ec­tion. Do not take local trans­port, just pre­tend it does not exist. This train­ing exer­cise should be attemp­ted on either a very hot day or dur­ing a rain­storm to max­im­ise the learn­ing effect.

3. The H2O Exercise

   Choose a res­taur­ant, sit down and order a glass of tap­wa­ter. Then see for how long you can nurse that water before hav­ing to order another one. As time passes you will prob­ably notice the waiter get­ting angrier and angrier. At that point maybe it’s time to upgrade to a beer. Try for at least one hour per drink. This exer­cise will come in handy the next time you will find your­self wait­ing for your con­nec­tion flight at an expens­ive air­port bar or restaurant.

4. The Insect Exercise

   Steal your little broth­ers ant farm (or buy one), catch a few flies, mos­qui­tos and cock­roaches and release all of them onto your bed short before bed­time. If you can bor­row a pet snake from a friend then all the bet­ter. Turn the heat­ing on as high as you can and close all the win­dows. Get rid of your duvet and cover your­self only with a thin sarong. Then try to go to sleep. If you are actu­ally able to go to sleep, then repeat the whole pro­ced­ure the next night with double the amount of insects. Altern­at­ively, you can set your alarm clock to ring every 10 minutes, although this is not recom­men­ded, because of the lack of realism.

5. The Pass­port Exercise

   Apply for a new pass­port. If yours is still valid, then ‘lose’ it. There’s a tiny bit of pre­par­a­tion involved with this exer­cise. Get a friend to record the fol­low­ing sen­tences for you: “Sorry, admit­tance only with proper trousers and shoes” and “Really sorry, but there’s noth­ing I can do”. Then dress in some well-worn board­shorts and put on your flip flops (yes, even if it’s winter in your part of the world) and walk to your town­hall or wherever you usu­ally apply for a new pass­port. When you’re about to step over the threshold play the first sen­tence to your­self. Say some­thing like “But I’d have to walk all the way back to my gues­t­house”, then play the second sen­tence. Go back home, dress appro­pri­ately, then ‘stand in line’ for about three hours. Even­tu­ally go to your case worker and apply for your pass­port. As soon as she asks for a photo pre­tend you for­got to bring any and feign sur­prise. Leave the town­hall, get your pic­ture taken, wait another three hours ‘in line’, then finally com­plete your application.

After under­tak­ing of all exer­cises, please send pho­tos of proof to my email address. By now you should not have any prob­lems with any bor­ing or tedi­ous situ­ations your travels will throw at you. Con­grat­u­la­tions!! You can now pin an ‘endur­ance traveller’-sticker onto your web­site (avail­able after recep­tion and exam­in­a­tion of said photos)!

DISCLAIMER:
Should you accept this mis­sion and under­take any or all of these endur­ance train­ing exer­cises, then Travel-Junkie.com can abso­lutely not be held respons­ible for any injur­ies, phys­ic­ally or, more likely, men­tally, or any­thing else that could, and prob­ably will, go wrong. Basic­ally you’re on your own. Enjoy and have fun!!!