In contrast to defining your travel personality, it’s a good idea to also determine your travel style, to give yourself a jump on what places to include or leave off your around-the-world itinerary and to keep your trip in budget and in focus.

Here are the 5 traveling styles as designated by the AirTreks staff:

Off the Beaten Path

You’re not the average tourist. You look to add more layers to your travel experience to give yourself rich and multi-cultural experiences every step of the way. You try things that more tentative travelers might skip.

Popular tourists spots are that way for a reason—history, beauty, craftsmanship—but some of the most rewarding traveling experiences have nothing to do with those things. Some of them are as simple as a cup of tea with a local shopkeeper.

Many people want to travel off the beaten path but don’t know how. Obviously, everything you undertake on your journey should fit inside your personal comfort zone but you shouldn’t fail to try to do something new simply out of fear of the unknown. Sometimes the proposition of striking out on your own where you don’t speak the language can be daunting, but remember it’s all part of the travel experience, one that will undoubtedly reward your courage.

Suggestions on how to get off the beaten path:

• Try the town at the bottom of your 101 Places to Visit list.
• Go to a village as opposed to a city.
• Try your second choice of continents.
• Maybe redefine what “the beaten path” means to you.

While it may not be easy finding places that haven’t been worn thin by other adventurous travelers, it doesn’t mean there still isn’t a spot where you’ll feel far from the camera toting masses, perhaps right in the middle of the most visited city of all. Check with your travel consultant for help discovering that proverbial and elusive “hidden gem”.

Traveling in Style

You need a little comfort. There’s no shame in wanting fancy sheets and a warm pool every once in a while.

If you’re going to be on the road for several months, you just may not want to stay in the cheapest, flea-bitten hostel you can find everywhere you go (or maybe not at all)—a hot shower and a comfortable bed can be a godsend after a few months, weeks or even days of traveling on the cheap. Many of our clients like to book a splurge or two into their trip, even if they’re trying to keep their costs down as much as possible.

If you’re looking to manage your budget, you might consider doing this in parts of the world where a splurge isn’t that expensive. For example, maybe during your travels through Europe you’d stay in budget hostels, but the night you arrive into Jaipur you might hire a car to pick you up at the airport and drive you to a 5 star hotel built into an old palace. Our ground partners can help you book as much or as little as you want, with whatever price point you’re interested in. Many of our passengers like to play it by ear in a lot of the places they stay, but want to book a few splurges along the way.

Other places where you might spend a bit more money to have better experiences could include treks in Nepal, safaris in East Africa, boat trips through Tierra del Fuego or a longer tour through places that might be harder to navigate on your own, like the Silk Road.

Or else, you like to travel in style for the duration of your journey.  If you want to fly business or first class, AirTreks can accommodate that, often for a discount. Business class is usually 2-3 times the price of economy class, but it can be REALLY worthwhile, especially on long trans-oceanic flights. This may be you after a lot of long flights in economy class. The decision is yours.

With Specific Intentions

You have things to do, places to be, going from place to place with an angle, an agenda, those with weddings, studies or business to attend to. This is you.

For some people traveling isn’t about aimlessly wandering the world, bouncing from tourist site to tourist site — they hit the road with a mission. It gives them purpose and a sense of responsibility to themselves to pull it off. Of course, as an individual, this can mean any number of things — maybe your life’s dream is to climb K2 or to take a perfect honeymoon including a resort in the Maldives and visit to the Eiffel Tower. Or, maybe you have a meeting in Shanghai on Monday and a meeting in Bangalore on Thursday. Perhaps you’re on a wedding tour, paying respect to friends in Phuket and family in Rome, or maybe you just got accepted to study at an ashram in India.

Whatever your “must do”, it can form the linchpin of your trip and something to build the rest of your journey around.

You have a plan to get to international destinations and it gives you a reason to be there, all the while engaging with the world and the best of its culture.

Immersing yourself in local culture

Getting in touch with a place takes a little time. You’re the type of traveler that likes to move slowly, to connect with locals in ways you wouldn’t normally do on a traveling whirlwind.

The Peace Corps is not the only way to immerse yourself in cultures around the world, although it’s certainly one way. Some people want to stay in a place over a long period of time to experience what daily life is like.

A great way to stop, recharge the batteries and get in touch with a local way of life is to rent yourself an apartment in a city of your choice. It slows you down and allows you to connect with a city from a local’s perspective, as opposed to the frenetic life of the tourist, seeing as much as you can every day.

Perhaps get a job, do the “Metro, Work, Bed” for awhile to see how the other half do it. Teaching English is a popular and easy method if you have the birthright of the English language on your tongue. Transitions Abroad has a great list of resources on how to get you started teaching English around the world and living in the colorful country of your dreams.

Responsible Traveler

You use the time of your travels for the greater good.

As countries around the world develop faster and faster, and as we as a global community start to see our impact on our environment, we feel that integrating some aspect of responsible travel is essential to your world journey. The Lonely Planet website defines responsible travel as:

“Minimizing your impact and maximizing your connection with people and the environment. It’s about making a positive contribution and having the most rewarding and inspiring travel experiences of your life.”

Here are some of their responsible travel tips. Our ground partner Global Basecamps offers sustainable tours, treks and accommodations all over the world. Many volunteer organizations also offer conservation and preservation projects such as tagging sea turtles, beach cleanups and cultural preservation efforts. Independent travelers, the majority of AirTreks’ clients, have a vital role to play in fostering a universal attitude of respect by helping to support local cultures in maintaining the world’s pristine environments.

You could volunteer for a smaller time period with organizations like Global Vision International or many of the other international volunteer organizations that exist: Volunteer Abroad or Go Abroad to name a couple. Voluntourism is a hot new phrase as well. If you’re looking to make a difference and have volunteering be an angle of your trip, this may be the cause for you. Take a look at Voluntourism.org.

If you want to immerse yourself in local culture on a smaller scale, there are other ways you can do so. Edward Hasbrouck recommends visiting a local English school and volunteering to be a conversation practice partner for the day.

If you haven’t already done it, the next step is to determine your “traveling personality”.