While traveling you experience tremendous differences in culture, but you also come across the smaller ones. The ones you’d never even guess would happen and almost seem insignificant, but in reality, can make a big impact on the way you communicate and interact with locals.

To prepare for our honeymoon, Mike and I hit up Barnes & Noble for good guidebooks. For Tunisia, I grabbed one of the Culture Smart! guidebooks – not because I thought it would supply me with “things to do” per se (we’ll be relying on Mike’s homemade Google Map for that), but because it looked like it would give me the kind of background I normally lack when going to a country I don’t know a whole lot about.

So far, it has. The book provides history, like the founding of Carthage, and it also gives you an overview of politics, religion and social norms.

While you can’t escape those little learning experiences like my incident in Cork, and to be honest I think those experiences are what help you grow to become a good traveler, it will be nice to feel somewhat, culturally equipped.

What’s the strangest cultural mishap you’ve experienced?

I think for most people, music is a good medium for learning. And as I look for new, convenient ways to practice Spanish, I’ve recently stumbled upon a new addiction.

While we were in Costa Rica, I saw the video for “Lo Hecho Esta Hecho” (I did It Again) by Shakira on TV in one of our hotel rooms. I had always liked the song in English but for some reason hearing it in Spanish made me like it even more – it’s been on my gym playlist ever since.

I also had no idea what she was saying so I looked up the lyrics, which I frequently read while listening to the song when Mike’s not home. Yeah I try to sing it too. It’s kind of like my revenge on my downstairs neighbors who constantly rock the same four R&B songs on repeat at a volume that makes my floor shake.

Do you ever listen to music in another language to help you learn?

But if I haven’t convinced you that it is worth a plane ticket to go to that wonderful country yet, I thought you should know that in conjunction with Gap Adventures, Nomadic Matt is giving away a free 2 week trip, airfare included!

I have never worked with Gap Adventures before so I can’t speak from personal experience, but I can say they have a pretty honest and trusted advocate.

If you don’t win, I still think you should go to Costa Rica. And if you do decide to make the trip, from my personal experience, I can highly recommend contacting the wonderful Travel Expert(a).

To learn how to enter, just scroll down below this last bit of evidence that Costa Rica is one amazing trip.  We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming soon…

To start, go here.

What do you win? Gap Adventures Costa Rica Explorer plus airfare. Yes, that’s right, not only do you get a two week vacation, but you also get the plane ticket there too. This trip is only for one person.

How do you win? To win this great prize, you need to write a 550 word blog post (to put on your blog) or create a 1 ½ minute video (to put on a video hosting site like YouTube or Vimeo) answering the following question: “Why do you want this trip, and what do you hope to get out of it?” Pretty easy! Just tell us why deserve this lovely prize.

Your blog entry must include a link back to this announcement page as well as mention that Nomadic Matt and Gap Adventures are giving this trip away and that it is our contest you are entering.

Then submit your entry by doing the following:

• Become a fan of Gap Adventures and Nomadic Matt on Facebook.
• Submit the url of your blog post or video to this email address: thenomadicmatt @ gmail dot com with the title “Costa Rica Giveaway”
• Tweet the following if you are on Twitter: “I just entered to win a free trip to Costa Rica from @nomadicmatt and @gapadventures (insert the shortened url of your entry so people can read it)
• Tell all your friends to vote in the public voting.  The public will help select the best entries so tell the world and get them involved.
• Hope you win.

Additional information can be found here.

Thank you guys for your comments, suggestions and for stopping by my little corner of the internet!

andhari agrees with me on Almost Famous. She said that she… always get mixed feelings whenever I watch it. To travel, discover, and achieve your dream. Even when we don’t discover only good things, they’re still really valuable lessons so many great quotes in the movie too!

Pam said… In other Danny Boyle movies, the first half of The Beach made me want to go to Thailand, and on my last visit to Scotland, we went to one pub specifically because it had been in Trainspotting.

Shannon OD loves… “Love Actually!” It’s one of my top favorite holiday movies and makes me feel so warm and fuzzy inside And now you have me hankering to see Almost Famous again – it’s been YEARS since the last time I watched it Great list!

Andi said… I love the old South of the earlier scenes of The Notebook. I love the New England weekend home of Dan in Real Life. I love Paris in too many movie to recount – what a great question.

Anil said… It’s a bit cliche but I really love The Motorcycle Diaries.

Emily @ Maiden Voyage said… I adore Love Actually! One movie that really makes me want to travel (this is so lame) is The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. It has some absolutely incredible scenes in Greece (I think shot in Oia) — Mamma Mia did, too. Those both made me really want to go to Greece, and I’m so glad I finally did this summer. Under the Tuscan Sun also makes me crave a trip to Italy!

Sues said… I totally agree with Love Actually! This is really random, but I was watching The Proposal this weekend and it made me reallyyy want to go to Alaska!

Flippin’ Yank is a movie junkie and she shared her (very extensive) travel movie list, which is awesome:

In Bruges-Belgium; Lost in Translation-Tokyo,;Dear Frankie and Sweet Sixteen-Glasgow, Scotland; Once and Intermission-Dublin; The Matchmaker-Galway; Under the Tuscan Sun and Cabiria-Italy;Bread and Tulips-Venice;Into The Wild-U.S. road trip; Amelie and French Kiss-France;Vicky Cristina and Barcelona-Barcelona;Vengo-Andalucia;Lovers of the Arctic Circle-The Laplands;any Jane Austen movie-Bath, England;Love and Other Disasters and Notting Hill-London;Wings of Desire-Germany;Fanny and Alexander-Sweden;Latcho Drom-journey of the Romany people told through musicians and dancers of India, Egypt, Turkey, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, France, and Spain;Motorcycle Diaries-South America;Buena Vista Social Club-Cuba;Sicko-makes me want to move to another country with nationalized healthcare;Long Way Round-motorcycle around the world;Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations-not a movie but makes me want to eat my way around the world!

annelise said… This is lame, but Made of Honor made me want to go to Scotland desperately. And to bounce of Andi, The Family Stone screamed “New England” at me. It reminds me of Hanover.

James Clark said… I thought Love Actually was better than what most reviewers thought of it, but perhaps it because I am something of an Anglophile that makes me like that movie as well. Waking Ned Devine makes me want to live in a little Irish village. Slumdog Millionaire actually made me want to go back to Mumbai.

bettina said… “Love Actually” is one of my favorite movies.

johnny said… I LOVE Love Actually! It is my favourite, such a feel good movie and Hugh Grant is awesome in it. I have never seen Chocolat, whats it about?

Andi said…. I love The English Patient, Frida, & Motorcycle Diaries. All are so heartwrenchingly inspiring and make me want to jump on the next plane ANYWHERE! I adore Love Actually too.

E.P. said… It’s funny that these movies make you want to travel because they make me feel the same way. Another one is ‘Under the Tuscan Sun,’ mostly because I lived in that town and miss it so.

______________________

The reason for all the Love Actually love is that I included the movie in my original post… thanks Julie

There will be a lot of travelers.

While the Wedding Channel had some great ideas for welcoming these guests and The Knot had ideas for making guests feel at home, I really want to start doing things now to make their trips more seamless and affordable.

After days of research and careful thought, I have come up with one idea:

~I set up bing travel updates based on where many of our guests are from. I entered their home airports and the dates they would most likely travel to get to our wedding. When the deals come in, I plan to forward them along.

That is my one tip for how to accommodate out of town guests to a wedding in advance. Do you have any suggestions?

I am standing by the fact that it was a hoax.

Recently, I signed up for a wedding expo I never attended. While I missed out on the show, I didn’t miss out on all the gimmicks that go along with it. For the past couple of weeks I have been getting nonstop phone calls, tons of snail mail and probably about a million emails a day, all congratulating me on my engagement and offering me the world, allegedly.

I will admit that my name and contact information is floating around a few other wedding websites as well, so I won’t completely attribute this to the show. Either way, since my engagement, my evenings have consisted of sifting through postcards from bridal shops and vendors, fake boarding passes and notes from realtors reminding me of the first time home buyer tax credit.

Anyway, as I catch up with my email and my reader, it was nice to break out of the wedding industry for a bit and actually find some worthwhile, no gimmick attached, contests that have some amazing prizes…

This month, Nomadic Matt is giving away an ipod touch and more.

Thanks Paul Johnson at A Luxury Travel Blog, you can win a luxury two-night stay in London.

Also, there are three days left in the Europe a la Carte Blog Twitter competition where you can win a seven day stay in a one bedroom apartment at the Parque de las Américas.

Fantabulously Frugal is giving away a gift certificate to Sunglass Warehouse – maybe I can get a pair for that fake cruise!

Know of any other good contest/giveaways/deals out there?

As a twenty something, I believe that myself and many of my peers also have a unique set of constraints that are either pushed upon us by external forces or simply internalized to the point that they weigh us down. There’s the absurd need to rise above the stigma attached to Gen Y in the workforce, the fear of failure and it’s potential to delay future accomplishments, the pressure to say yes to everyone and everything so that you never let anyone down, and then there’s the silly assumption that you should get married, buy a house and have kids at the exact same age your parents did despite the fact that we live in an entirely different world.

Maybe I am a little crazy, but if you do have any obstacles in your way, I do believe that there are a few simple ways to get around them or at least work with them, so that you can manage to fit seeing the world around your career…

See opportunity in wedding season

There is a certain time in one’s life when weddings fill your calendar. While there is no place I’d rather be than celebrating such an important day with my close friends and family, there is no doubt that weddings are one of the main roadblocks to carrying out my own travel plans. Between the cost and the days needed to be taken off work, it is difficult to really fit in a long vacation during the year.

But, if you are attending a wedding in a new city, try and take an extra day off so you have time to explore. Let’s face it, you’re already dropping a lot of money on all these weddings, what’s another day? Especially considering you may have so many to go to that they encroach upon a longer trip during the year. It could be a great opportunity to really see a new place.

Tap non-local friends

There are four awesome things about having friends that live in different cities:

1. You can travel to see them.

2. You have a place to stay.

3. You get to see their city from the perspective of a local.

4. When they visit, you get to play tour guide, encouraging you to see new places in your own hometown.

Save, just for travel

Starting a savings account that is just meant for travel is extremely helpful. I love ING because you can open up multiple accounts and even title them differently – like, “travel fund” -  so you can organize your savings around creating time for yourself.

Become a master of your vacation days

I am a nut about staying on top of how many days I have accrued and how many I have left. I tend to use most of them in large chunks as opposed to taking a bunch of long weekends because it gives me the chance to travel somewhere farther away.

I recommend requesting a week or so off way in advance and then spending time searching for cheap flights to anywhere. This alleviates the pressure of finding the time to vacation, but it also forces you to take the days that you deserve. And, depending on what you find, you could end up in a place you never thought you would visit, just because it was cheap to fly there.

Just do it

I’m not advocating going into debt. But, sometimes you have to step back and weigh the advantages of seeing the world against accruing interest on a credit card. Think about your last trip and how much you gained in experience, how much you learned about a new culture and how what you saw will never be erased from your memory. Most times, you may come to the conclusion that those gains are more valuable than reaching a financial goal on time.

Now I know you savvy readers must have some more tips for finding a balance. What other ways can we be sure to not let travel become a nonexistent priority?

Because you came up with such good ideas, I decided to dedicate this post to what you came up with…

Julie Q said that she updates the screen savers on her work computer, which usually helps keep vacations in mind.

Lisa said that she makes note of where all friends, new and old, live and takes advantage of visiting them. Since they are living there, it is a free place to stay but it also gives you a deadline you can’t control, which forces you to take the time.

Jay W. said to keep your travel money separate. A savings account designated especially for travel will make sure you’re not buying other stuff with that money.

Andi said that people should also think about having an inspiration board where they can post pictures or quotes or whatever will inspire them to travel in the future!

Liz Kao at Dealbase.com agrees with dining in authentic restaurants – partly because it’s easy for her to do in San Francisco. She also agrees that the idea of having a world map nearby is also great.

Anil thinks that it helps to peg down a place to go and make plans within say, 6 months or a year to make your next move. That makes it easier to save for a trip, something that holds many people back.

When limited to a certain amount of vacation time that doesn’t roll over each year, the worst thing you can do is let your days pile up until the last minute, which is a position I unfortunately find myself in too often.

Let’s face it, when you look back at your life, you’re going to remember your times of leisure and adventure with friends and family more than your time in a cubicle – so making the best out of the free time we have available to us is vital.

To stay focused on what really matters, I have inadvertently come up with little strategies to keep me motivated and on the right track….

Infiltrate information overload. Many of us get tons of emails and Facebook messages, not to mention all the other social media community updates. With all this information flowing into your inbox anyway, you might as well sign up for email alerts that will take you out of serious mode and keep travel top of mind. Throughout the week my inbox is filled with notes from SmarterTravel.com, TravelZoo, Dealbase, TripAdvisor, Kayak, DailyCandy Travel and Yapta, to name a few…

Dine in authentic restaurants. Whether you are going out to eat with friends or it’s date night, seek out the more authentic, international cuisine in your area. For example, eating a sampling of authentic tapas will get the wheels turning and could be the motivation you need to book a flight to Spain. For international cuisine I like Ole in Cambridge, pretty much anywhere in the North End, Boston’s little Italy, and the Black Rose.

Surround your living space with travel. For starters, hanging up a map of the world in your apartment or house is a constant reminder of where you’ve been and where you haven’t. My map hangs on the wall right behind the screen of my little Macbook. Flipping through the pages of a magazine or newspaper, with all the in depth stories and beautiful photos, is like flipping through old photos except instead of creating a feeling of longing for the past, it creates a yearning to go. My coffee table holds copies of Travel + Leisure, which more often than not highlights journeys a bit above my budget, but there’s nothing wrong with aiming high. It also holds my favorite part of the Boston Globe – the travel section.

Read travel blogs. There is nothing more motivating than reading about others’ adventures in virtually real time. They are also the best place for ideas and the most reliable sources. The Travel Expert [A], My Melange and Camels and Chocolate have been particularly motivating for me lately.

I am hoping to get back on track with planning my next trip, with a new deadline of the end of this week, pre-wedding number 2.

Do you have any tips or tricks that help keep you focused on planning your travels?

As I clicked through the many tourist attractions in and around Boston I realized something. In all my travels, there are many basic Boston attractions for tourists that I have never encountered. When friends from out of town visit and ask for advice on what to see, oftentimes I will throw in a couple of generic locations and not be able to offer my first hand experience.

Do you have any mainstream tourist attractions in your city that you have never visited simply because you feel you will always have the chance?

For me, I grew up in Boston and I’ve never…

[From Associated Content: Travel]

…walked the Freedom Trail in its entirety

been on a Boston Duck Tour

had a drink in Cheers.

I also lived in Philadelphia for four years and…

[From OurKidsNews.com]

…the best view I ever got of the Liberty Bell was from the passenger seat of a car

I never saw the Constitution Center

or Independence Hall

To find out how I can become a better local traveler, I have been analyzing my Google calendar to see what I can fit into my upcoming summer weekends. It’s kind of sad to see the full picture – all your weekends fill up with commitments – and summer seem so much shorter than it is. Shortly after this thought crossed my mind, I was contacted by the folks at HomeAway.com about their Save Our Summer Vacation campaign, in which they are petitioning the US Congress to proclaim August 7 as a “National Vacation Day.” They feel that American families deserve a summer vacation, no matter the current state of the economy. They are also holding a contest and giving away a $10,000 dream getaway vacation. You can learn more and enter here.

Who would argue with that?