With iPod, Will Travel
A Tourist’s Quest for Universal Postures
Nothing screams tourist like two people animated over a discordant five-fold city map on a busy street corner. It’s a scene as common in Portland (where I’m the one who gets to laugh), as in Budapest (where unfortunately, I’m not laughing). To avoid this scene, every pre-trip planning session has involved some thought on ways to reduce this scenario.
One way to avoid this scene is through Universal Postures. By Universal Postures, I’m speaking of postures, where without the aid of all props, the engaged posture would still be recoginized. For example, the posture of holding a hot latte while standing at a bus stop, with the, ‘I’ve got a Starbucks’ sip. This would belong to the Business People set of Universal Postures. And tourists have their own unique set.
Tourist postures, like the peering over a map, or the skyward pointing toward some distant landmark, are the sort of thing that attracts the attention of pickpockets and sneers from the locals. They’re the postures you want to avoid.
Thanks to the viral spread of white ear buds, there’s a more accepted Universal Posture that can combat this. It’s the ‘I’m Scanning My iPod Playlist’ posture.
Using a combination of Notes files (simple text files) placed on your iPod and the occasional reference photo snapped from Google Earth (for maps) or other pics from guidebooks, you can effectively have access to a wealth of tourist assistance. From step by step directions, to local language phrases, landmark photos, maps and emergency info, you have easy access to anything you might normally have to pull out a map for, or flip frantically through a guidebook to find. Or worse, trying to engage a local in your lost cause.
