Culture Guides
The joy of travel comes from a simple fact: when you go somewhere else things are different. The world is a collage. Each community your bus takes you to brings a new array of food, language and expression. You can even try a new flavor of lover or expand your consciousness (see our Drug Guides for the Traveler section.)
Road Junky has 71 Culture Guides articles. Scroll down to view.
The A to Z World Culture Encyclopedia
From African tribal masks to Zanzibar street food there is a lot with which travelers can get acquainted. This guide is the launching off point to learn about the diverse ...
Guide to Development and International Aid
Disclaimer: This article contains my opinions on the aid industry and development which have been formed in a large part by time spent as a development volunteer in
101 World Culture Shocks
World culture becomes increasingly homogenized with each passing year but there’s still enough diverse instances to prove that ancient anthropological truth best summarized by Obelix: these humans are crazy. ...
The Left Hand Toilet Technique and Spitting – World Hygiene
From Morocco to Bangladesh, use your left hand to eat with, pick stuff up in the grocery store or even worse, to shake someone else’s hand and you’ll be considered ...
The Bus Busker in Latin America: All the Road's a Stage
In Latin America the bus is king, holding the place occupied by the automobile in North America or the train in Europe. More than the dominant form of transport, it’s ...
The Story of Stuff - World Over-Consumption
The Story of Stuff is a lucid, hard-hitting take on the trap of modern economics and how we are literally consuming our planet that even someone who voted for Bush ...
Another 101 World Culture Shocks
When we published 101 world culture shocks last year the reaction was tremendous with lots of readers across the internet getting all puffed up about some of the ...
Asterix, French Comic Hero
The poor old French. Once the dominant world culture with their own empire and the aristocrats of Russia taking French lessons to sound sophisticated at their salon parties, now their ...
Asian Culture in the West
The rain banished the May heat and turned the narrow streets of Florence into death zones with umbrella prongs passing at neck-height. Confused gaggles of tourists made the pavements unpassable ...
The Culture of Tipping Around the World
Let’s come out and say it: tipping sucks.
It’s the residue of ancient class distinctions when one kind of profession was considered inferior to another and the difference had to be ...
Ten Pacific Island Culture Shocks
Rereading Paul Theroux’s excellent The Happy Isles of Oceania, I felt moved to share some of the juiciest cultural oddities. At Road Junky we’re a fan of culture shocks to ...
Old People Around the World
“I have 2 sons, they all live in the city now. The oldest is a teacher now, he calls me sometimes. The younger son said he might come visit. The ...
Where East and West Meet
‘East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet,’ Kipling famously said and for a long time that was the standard wisdom. The world was divided ...
Forget Tsunamis - the Internet's Down!
Internet and travel are becoming inseparable for many these days. Travelers buy tickets online, reserve hostels, check the weather and of course, log on for the latest scintillating editorial from ...
You, Me and the Credit Crisis
Some years ago, a friend who has been driving motorcycles around India for the last 20 years found himself staying in a peasant’s hut somewhere in Karnataka. Impressed by his ...
Interview With Eco-Activists Plane Stupid
RJ: How the hell did you break through security at an international airport? Did it require much planning? How were nerves on the night?
Wiz: Well, firstly, yes there was ...
Hollywood and the Mafia
When it comes to the mafia, Hollywood has a lot to answer for. Images of the ‘mob’ conjure up masterful performances from De Niro, Brando, Pacino, Peschi, the criminal organizations ...
The Dance of Several Million Veils
“When a female student wears the veil,” a professor in Isfahan explained to me, “She is protected. She can meet her tutors on her merits as a student alone and ...
The World is Full of People - Overpopulation Videos
One of the often forgotten luxuries of living in the First World is the relative absence of crowds. A third of the world’s population is Chinese or Indian and in ...
The Ecological Recession and Over Consumption
Until recently, people who talked about the massive losses of Amazonian rainforest or disappearing species were considered ‘greens’, ‘hippies’ or maybe just good-hearted ‘romantics’. Yes, it’s terrible that cute animals ...
The U.S. Election Around the World
Forget Halloween or New Year’s Eve. The biggest party of the year is happening this Tuesday and the whole world is coming out … to watch TV.
And, naturally, the big ...
Culture Blinded by Poetry in Sinai - Want to be the Editor of Road Junky?
Last winter I was hiding out in Sinai and as Hanukah had already passed, there weren’t too many Israelis on holiday and only the odd other foreigner around. ...
Stumblers Love/Hate Road Junky and 101 Culture Shocks
When we woke up this morning our hangovers evaporated in the moment that we saw that Stumbleupon.com had sent us around 30,000 extra visitors over the weekend.
Wow.
First of all ...
10 Ways to Assimilate and Integrate with a Foreign Culture
Any Road Junky who doesn’t want to be a culture vulture needs to get out of their mindset and really get to grips with the culture they’re traveling in. So ...
Eastern Spirituality for Sale in Vanity Fair
When I was younger I thought that the Western world was lacking in spirituality. I was reading plenty of books about the East at the time and deduced that our ...
The Digital Divide and the Traveler
Once upon a time there was no such thing as the internet. Shocking, but true. Travelers on the road had to go to the nearest post office to collect their ...
The Death of Ritual - Are Travelers Culture Vultures?
A good part of the reason that many of us travel is that our own culture seems so impoverished. Every town in the developed world seems identical with the same ...
Your Second Home in the Sun - Aaaaaaagh!
It’s been years since I’ve lived in England, 13 to be precise but I still pass through every now and then to connect with a few old friends and make ...
Downloading in Disaster Zones
I was born in the 70’s, the so-called ‘golden age’ of porn, the decade when the term ‘swinging’ first hit the street and the Weather Underground and others were trying ...
Western Union - Getting Rich on the Backs of the Poor
Disclaimer: Road Junky could do with the publicity generated by a law suit for libel from Western Union but we’d like to advise our readers that is purely an opinion ...
Japanese Culture - Love Hotels
The Japanese are almost a species apart. A reserved, formal culture laden with hierarchy and rigid social expectations, when it comes to dating and sex they are in a world ...
Sex Still Sells in Brazil - TV ads
Whilst the rest of the world may have gotten the idea that women are more than sex objects, Brazil still lingers with the notion that girls in bikinis are what ...
Ethnic Slurs - World Culture at its Worst
The traveler ends up being called many names around the world and few of them are all that nice. Don’t worry, immigrants have been putting up with this kind of ...
Israelis, Palestinians and the Myth of Cultural Identity
“A nation is a society united by a delusion about its past and by a common hatred of its neighbours.” (Dean Inge)
I met an old Israeli friend the other day ...
The War of Terror Against the Muslims
Some years ago, I was in Delhi and an Indian told me with great certainty:
“Look anywhere in the world where there is war or problems and you will find ...
Immigrants - the Only Real Travelers Left
Travel was once the domain of the adventurer, the intrepid explorer who dared leave behind all he knew and set off into the Great Unknown with little more than his ...
Homogenous World Culture
Just about anywhere these days it seems is within reach of a package flight company. There are guides to every destination that hype up all the cute cultural ideosyncrasies whilst ...
10 Leading Causes of Travel Deaths (maybe)
The number of ways that you can die are uncountable but not to great that you can’t bring a little imagination to the proceedings and start adding up how many ...
10 Best Places to get Stoned Around the World
There’s a big difference between drugs and natural medicines in our eyes which help us see the world as it really is, infinite. Of course, the biggest trip of all ...
10 Weirdest Foods in the World
Whilst trying to gross ourselves out a while ago, our travel editors got their heads together and came up with 10 really weird foods they’d eaten or seen eaten on ...
Begging Across the World
In India when one chooses to give a few rupees to a beggar by the side of the road it’s good etiquette to salute him at the same time. He, ...
Chasing Rainbows in Chennai, India
I had been watching satellite TV in my hotel room for far too long. The more I watched, the wearier I became. The advertisements were almost carbon copies of the ...
Morocco Immigration to Spain
The Islamic Empire began inside the head of an uneducated Arab called Mohammed in an unheard of village in Saudi Arabia. A few revelations and bloody civil wars later, a ...
World Cuisine - Bugs, sheep's head soup
The pitcher of beer arrived and our Korean host filled our glasses before attending to his own. The waiter slid a few plates of snacks onto the table and I ...
World Anthropology at the Crossroads
Go! Go! Damnit!
When anthropologists approach a foreign culture in the hope of gaining some understanding of the values and nature of the people who live there, they generally consider a ...
Misha Glenny Talks About the World Mafia
Organised crime is getting more and more organised.
The Danger of a Single Story - Lies of Modern Culture
Chimamanda Adichie speaks of the misleading myths that frame the identity of powerless peoples.
Pachinko, Gambling in Tokyo From Wim Wenders
Loud, repetitive and cutesy, pachinko parlours help the modern Japanese relax.
Super Size Me - the American Weight
Morgan Spurlock’s gonzo insight into the American fast food business.
