Look. In life and in travel, do whatever the hell you want. But at the risk of sounding like your parents, are you really going to go out looking like that? Nostalgia has understandably gripped us here at HUMP HO, and while looking fondly and figuratively over our travel family photos, we were shocked, as you always are, about how terribly we all were dressed.
Travel fashion is in a dire state. We can laugh all we want about German tourists and their socks and sandals, or look on in horror at those pants that zip off to become shorts, but the grim truth of it is that all of us are just as guilty. We’ve all used travel as an excuse to look like walking, talking cat sick.
Why are you strolling around Paris in hiking boots? Why are you basically wearing pyjamas on a plane? Why are you poolside at Lake Toba in a paint-spattered t-shirt and ripped undies?
The answer, as it is invariably given, is comfort. But aside from the fact that you should be embracing discomfort when you travel (because it means you’re experiencing some-thing new) it also doesn’t make a lick of sense. It’s a weak excuse, especially when your sherpa can jog up the Himalayas with 40kg of your gear in a pair of skinny jeans, or your guide leads you for five days through the Borneo jungle in a University of Michigan hoodie and some knock-off Chuck Taylors.
Seriously, you can sit in the office all day wearing a suit but can’t survive a six-hour bus ride without your activewear? You can dance all night in dress shoes but can’t survive an hour walk without your joggers? And don’t get me started on people taking 30 litre North Face daypacks around the city with them, just to visit a couple of museums. I PROMISE THAT YOU WON’T SUDDENLY FIND YOURSELF TRAPPED IN A BANK VAULT. TAKE LESS STUFF OUT WITH YOU.
There’s a deeper point here too. If you dress nice (and that doesn’t mean expensive!) it shows more respect for wherever you’re visiting. It shows that you care about their impressions of you, and that therefore they’re important to you – not just some background noise on your solipsistic journey for self-improvement.
In other words, the locals will like you more, and respect you back. Nice clothes open hearts and borders and opportunities and connections – more than so-called comfort can ever provide.
