Conscious travel mindset: What kind of tourist I want to be

Avoiding the crowd

Yesterday was a long, full day. By the time we got back to the hotel, I had neither the time nor the energy to write. So I postponed it to today.

I’m not sure what kind of tourist I am, but I know that I don’t enjoy tourist-crowded, popular spots. I know, it sounds contradictory, being a tourist who tries to avoid tourists! 🤨 Gab is mostly the same, though he occasionally deviates.

So yesterday, instead of following the tourist itinerary, we rented a scooter and explored around Da Lat.

Gab wanted to take me to a coffee shop he thought I would like 😇. We set off early in the morning, but on the way, a thick fog covered the city. I started to worry, as the fog was an extra layer of risk on top of Vietnam’s already chaotic scooter traffic.

When we arrived, the view was completely white 🫤.

Gab was a bit disappointed; he had imagined a clear view where we could see the beautiful mountainous view in front of the coffee shop deck. But after about half an hour, the sky started to clear and I realized I didn’t need to worry so much 😌

After the coffee, we started the excursion and rode towards the suburbs of Da Lat where locals became the majority. The early morning air was crisp and I had to put on two layers to feel comfortable on the scooter.

The nature was beautiful, lots of greenery and colourful flowers that you can only find in a tropical country. I sometimes wondered how the creator had come up with some of those flower ideas!

On the way, we stopped by a temple with not many tourists around. That might be because it’s the off-season. There was a tall Buddha in the temple with a staircase inside its body.

We climbed all the way up to its eyes.

Finding safe place to eat can be challenge

As we started to get hungry, we looked for a clean and decent restaurant or coffee shop to have something.

One fact about Vietnam is that finding such a place to eat is not very easy. I was cautious about street food, especially since they keep the meat unrefrigerated 😶 so we needed to be selective.

We checked about ten places before settling on one.

At one point, we discovered a large, beautifully designed café that was completely empty. It had no strong presence on Google Maps. We only found it because we happened to pass by.

That seems to be a pattern here: some great places look unremarkable online, while some poor or average spots appear impressive.

So it is a bit confusing to choose on Google Map, but the good thing about it is that it forces you to move, to explore the area and to pay attention. Things a regular tourist doesn't do. If everything is on Google Map, we prefer navigating online rather than offline. Right? 😉

I personally learned a fair deal about Da Lat by wandering in the streets and having eye-to-eye interactions with vendors and stall owners and scooter riders driving directly into my path😁

What kind of tourist do I want to be

That actually defines the kind of tourist I want to be 😏.

I am not travelling to seek shallow experiences and then come back home. I’d like to merge with the locals (as far as I can, or as much as they are open to it).

I want to understand how they live, what matters to them, how they see the world. I want to grow respect for them, sympathize with them, learn from them, and challenge whatever unconscious biases I have towards them

I want to return to Canada a wiser and more aware woman 🙂‍↕️.

It might sound strange but I would like to travel to find lost pieces of me spread around this rocky planet. Deep inside, I do not feel that other countries are foreign, I have a feeling that they are all part of me and I am part of them that have just not been realized. I am serious!

Maybe that also makes me less of an annoying tourist 😁.

I wished I could connect more

It’s been seven days since we arrived in Vietnam. I’ve only begun to understand pieces of Vietnamese culture. For example, I can see how different life feels between Ho Chi Minh City and Da Lat.

However, this knowledge is based on a short stay in a country that I have never been to before, nor had any link with.

I wish I could get the perspective from a local, someone who would spend time to share some insight about this sun-rich and unique country. The kind where someone shares their country as a friend, not as a service.

I think once knowledge sharing becomes transactional, it loses its depth. It becomes polished and even distorted.

I am longing for a deep conversation, a genuine exchange 🙂‍↔️. You know what I mean?

In such an effort, I’ve tried to connect with locals, but several short experiences showed me that Vietnamese people seem reserved, and of course the language barrier doesn’t help either.

AI translations, for some reason, haven’t worked well between English and Vietnamese. They often felt confusing on both sides 🥺.

I don’t know why, but I found it easier to communicate with Japanese people using the same tools.

Below are some photos from the excursion yesterday:

Conclusion

I end this blog here. It doesn’t have a conclusion because I have not come up with any conclusion yet 🙂. It is too early to conclude anything.

It only reflects what I went through during my day and what is occupying my mind today. This is what blogs are for, right? 😉

Have a great day/night and talk soon.

April 19th, 2026

Da Lat, Vietnam